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nifhed for performing his share of a duty which is equally urgent on us all.

Add to this, that from the highest in place to the lowest, every British subject, who, in obedience to the Company's orders, has been active in the discovery of peculations, has been ruined. They have been driven from India. When they made their appeal at home they were not heard. When they attempted to return they were ftopped. No artifice of fraud, no violence of power, has been omitted, to destroy them in character as well as in fortune.

Worfe, far worse, has been the fate of the poor creatures, the natives of India, whom the hypocrify of the Company has betrayed into complaint of oppreffion, and discovery of peculation. The firft women in Bengal, the Ranni of Rajeshahi, the Ranni of Burdwan, the Ranni of Amboa, by their weak and thoughtless truft in the Company's honour and protection, are utterly ruined: the first of these women, a person of princely rank, and once of correfpondent fortune, who paid above two hundred thousand a year quit-rent to the State, is, according to very crediblein formation, fo completely beggared as to ftand in need of the relief of alms. Mahomed Reza Khân, the second Muffulman in Bengal, for having been diftinguished by the ill-omened honour of the countenance and protection of the Court of Directors, was, without the pretence of any inquiry whatsoever into his condnet, ftripped of all his employments, and reduced to the lowest condition. His ancient rival for power, the Rajah Nundcomar, was, by an infult on every thing which India holds respectable and facred, hanged in the face of all his nation, by the judges you fent to protect that people; hanged for a pretended crime, upon an ex poft facto British act of Parliament, in the midst of his evidence against Mr. Haftings. The accufer they faw hanged. The culprit, without acquittal or inquiry, triumphs on the ground of that murder; a murder not of Nundcomar only, but of all living teftimony, and even of evidence yet unborn. From that time, not a complaint has been heard from

the

the natives against the Governors. All the grievances of India have found a complete remedy.

Men will not look to acts of Parliament, to regulations, to votes, and refolutions. No; they are not fuch fools. They will ask, what is the road to power, credit, wealth, and honours? They will afk, what conduct ends in neglect, difgrace, poverty, exile, prison, and gibbet? These will teach them the course which they are to follow. It is your diftribution of these that will give the character and tone to your government. All the reft is miferable grimace.

This, Sir, has been their conduct; and it has been the refult of the alteration which was infenfibly made in their conftitution. The change was made infenfibly; but it is now ftrong and adult, and as public and declared, as it is fixed beyond all power of reformation. So that there is none who hears me, that is not as certain as I am, that the Company, in the sense in which it was formerly understood, has no existence. The question is, what injury you may do to the Proprietors of India ftock; for there are no fuch men to be injured. If the active ruling part of the Company who form the general court, who fill the offices, and direct the measures (the reft tell for nothing) were perfons who held their stock as a means of their fubfiftence, who in the part they took were only concerned in the government of India, for the rife or fall of their dividend, it would be indeed a defective plan of policy. The intereft of the people who are governed by them would not be their primary object; perhaps a very small part of their confideration at all. But then they might well be depended on, and, perhaps, more than perfons in other refpects preferable, for preventing the peculations of their fervants to their own. prejudice. Such a body would not eafily have left their trade as a spoil to the avarice of those who received their wages. But now things are totally reverfed. The ftock is of no value, whether it be the qualification of a Director or Proprietor; and it is impoffible that it should. A Director's qualification

may

may be worth about two thousand five hundred pounds--and the intereft, at eight per cent. is about one hundred and fixty pounds a year. Of what value is that, whether it rife to ten, or fall to fix, or to nothing, to him whofe fon, before he is in Bengal two months, and before he defcends the fteps of the Council Chamber, fells the grant of a single contract for forty thousand pounds? Accordingly the ftock is bought up in qualifications. The vote is not to protect the ftock, but the ftock is bought to acquire the vote; and the end of the vote is to cover and fupport, against justice, fome man of power who has made an obnoxious fortune in India; or to maintain in power those who are actually employing it in the acquifition of fuch a fortune; and to avail themselves in return of his patronage, that he may fhower the fpoils of the Eaft, "barbarie pearl and gold," on them, their families, and dependents. So that all the relations of the Company are not only changed, but inverted. The fervants in India are not appointed by the Directors, but the Directors are chofen by them. The trade is carried on with their capitals. To them the revenues of the country are mortgaged. The feat of the fupreme power is in Calcutta. The house in Leadenhall Street is nothing more than a change for their agents, factors, and deputies, to meet in, to take care of their affairs, and support their interests; and this fo avowedly, that we fee the known agents of the delinquent fervants marfhalling and difciplining their forces, and the prime spokesmen in all their affemblies.

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I therefore conclude, what you all muft conclude, that this body, being totally perverted from the purposes of its institution, is utterly incorrigible; and because they are incorrigible, both in conduct and conftitution, power ought to be taken out of their hands; juft on the fame principles on which have been made all the juft changes and revolutions of government that have taken place fince the beginning of the world.

Mr. Burke, Dec. 1, 1783.

MR.

MR. SPEAKER, I rife with the deepeft anxiety to endea vour to prevent the farther progrefs of this bill; because, in my opinion, it deftroys the ancient, established forms of all parliamentary proceedings in this Houfe, violates the national faith, fubverts every principle of juftice and equity, and gives a mortal stab to this free Conftitution. Sir, the forms of proceeding in this House were wifely established by our ancestors, after the most mature deliberation, as a guard against surprise by any Minifters, and to give our conftituents. timely information of what was doing in Parliament, that the collected wisdom of the nation might be appealed to, and known, on every occafion of inoment. This accounts for the flowness of our proceedings, compared with the mode of paffing bills in the other House of Parliament. Their Lordships have no constituents, whom it is a duty to confult. In the progrefs of this bill, the invariable rules and orders of the House have been fet afide without the leaft fhadow of neceffity, almoft without the flightest pretence; and the bill continues to be hurried on with indecent hafte. When the right honourable Secretary moved for leave to bring in a bill for the better regulation of the Eaft-India Company, he stated the desperate condition of the Company's finances as the fole ground on which he ftood. He reprefented it as a cafe of abfolute and immediate neceffity for the interpofition of the Legiflature. He exprefly difclaimed every other motive, although he invidiously went at large into every fuppofed delinquency of Mr. Haftings, and almost every other fervant of the Company, for many years. He did not, indeed, in terms affert, that the Company were in a state of bankruptcy, but he declared, that they owed five millions more than they were able to pay, and went into a variety of accounts, without any attempt at the smallest proof of what he advanced, or calling for a single paper, in fo great a variety of matter. He pledged himfelf for the moft fcrupulous accuracy, yet, in the very moment, forgot to give the Company credit for an immense floating proVOL. II.

H

perty,

perty, for all their stores, goods, and merchandises, in the ware houfes at Calcutta, Bencoolen, Bombay, Fort St. George, and other factories in the Eaft. An omiffion of this importance could not proceed from ignorance, where infinite pains were taken to examine into the moft minute particulars; nor from careleffness, where no trace of a heedlefs inattention or forgetfulness was ever obferved. It argued a total want of good faith, a deliberate refolution of taking the House by furprife, and it fucceeded with a weary, puzzled, and embarrassed audience. Leave was given to bring in the bill.

Sir, I do not only complain of an omiffion of this magnitude on the credit fide of this pretended account of the East-India Company's affairs, but likewife of the fuppreffion of fome interrefting facts, which ought to have been brought forward, and placed in a full light. It appears by the printed accounts of the General State of the Affairs of the Eaft-India Company, published by order of the General Court," that the arrivals have been put so much out of their ordinary course, that only thirteen fhips arrived in the season 1782, and eleven in the feafon 1783, while forty-five are left to arrive in 1784, befides ten more, which are now abroad, and will be kept in India, so as to arrive in 1785, at the fame time with most of those now under dispatch from hence." Was it, Sir, confiftent with candour or justice, to fupprefs facts of this moment, in a long and laboured inveftigation of every circumftance refpecting the first commercial Company in the world? The reason, however, is glaring. The property which these ships will bring home cannot fail of placing the finances of the Company on as folid a foundation as the most interested Proprietor could wish, or the most avaricious and grafping Minister defire; but, alas! it is a diftant day, and the moment is presfing, big with the fate of Minifters. Needy dependents grow importunate and clamorous, as being used not to give, but to take credit. Prefent plunder is preferred to future golden dreams of all the treasures of the Eaft, and with confummate prudence,

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