of millions of men, for the base confideration of money. We fold, I admit, all that we had to fell; that is, our authority, not our controul. We had not a right to make a market of our duties..

I ground myself therefore on this principlethat if the abufe is proved, the contract is broken;" and we re-enter into all our rights; that is, into the exercife of all our duties: Our own authority is indeed as much a truft originally, as the company's authority is a trust derivatively; and it is the use we make of the refumed power that must juftify or condemn us in the refumption of it. When we have perfected the plan laid before us by the right honourable mover, the world will then see what it is we destroy, and what it is we create. By that teft we stand or fall; and by that teft I trust that it will be found in the iffue, that we are going to fuperfede a charter abused to the full extent of all the powers which it could abuse, and exercised in the plenitude of defpotifm, tyranny and corruption; and that in one and the fame plan, we provide a real chartered fecurity for the rights of men cruelly violated under that

charter.

This bill, and those connected with it, are intended to form the magna charta of Hindoftan. Whatever the treaty of Weftphalia is to the liberty of the princes and free cities of the empire, and

to

of them, and our very enquiry into the evil was only a pretext to elude the remedy which is demanded from us by humanity, by justice, and by every principle of true policy. Depend upon it, this business cannot be indifferent to our fame. It will turn out a matter of great disgrace or great glory to the whole British nation. We are on a confpicuous stage, and the world marks our de

meanour.

I am therefore a little concerned to perceive the fpirit and temper in which the debate has been all along pursued upon one fide of the house. The declamation of the gentlemen who oppose the bill has been abundant and vehement; but they have been referved and even filent about the fitnefs or unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object it has in view. By fome gentlemen it is taken up (by way of exercise I prefume) as a point of law on a question of private property, and corporate franchise; by others it is regarded as the petty intrigue of a faction at court, and argued merely as it tends to fet this man a little higher, or that a little lower in fituation and power. All the void has been filled up with invectives againft coalition; with allufions to the lofs of America; with the activity and inactivity of minifters. The total filence of these gentlemen concerning the interest and well-being of the people of India, and concerning the intereft which this nation has in the com

merce

merce and revenues of that country, is a ftrong indication of the value which they fet upon thefe objects.

It has been a little painful to me to obferve the intrusion into this important debate of fuch company as quo warranto, and mandamus, and certiorari; as if we were on a trial about mayors and aldermen, and capital burgeffes; or engaged in a fuit concerning the borough of Penryn, or Saltash, or St. Ives, or St. Mawes. Gentlemen have argued with as much heat and paffion, as if the first things in the world were at ftake; and their topicks are fuch, as belong only to matter of the lowest and meaneft litigation. It is not right, it is not worthy ́of us, in this manner to depreciate the value, to degrade the majefty, of this grave deliberation of policy and empire.

For my part, I have thought myself bound, when a matter of this extraordinary weight came before me, not to confider (as fome gentlemen are fo fond of doing) whether the bill originated from a fecretary of state for the home department, or from a fecretary for the foreign, from a minifter of influence or a minifter of the people; from Jacob or from Efau.* I asked myself, and I asked myself nothing elfe, what part it was fit for a member of parliament, who has fupplied a medio

* An allusion made by Mr. Powis.

B 3

crity

crity of talents by the extreme of diligence, and who has thought himself obliged, by the research of years, to wind himself into the inmost receffes and labyrinths of the Indian detail, what part, I fay, it became fuch a member of parliament to take, when a minifter of ftate, in conformity to a recommendation from the throne, has brought before us a fyftem for the better government of the territory and commerce of the caft. In this light, and in this only, I will trouble you with my

fentiments.

It is not only agreed but demanded, by the right honourable gentleman,* and by thofe who act with him, that a whole fyftem ought to be produced; that it ought not to be an half measure; that it ought to be no palliative; but a legislative provifion, vigorous, fubftantial, and effective.I believe that no man who understands the fubject can doubt for a moment, that those must be the conditions of any thing deferving the name of a reform in the Indian government; that any thing short of them would not only be delufive, but, in this matter which admits no medium, noxious in the extreme.

To all the conditions propofed by his adverfaries the mover of the bill perfectly agrees; and on his performance of them he refts his caufe. On the

*Mr. Pitt,

other

other hand, not the leaft objection has been taken, with regard to the efficiency, the vigour, or the completeness of the fcheme. I am therefore warranted to affume, as a thing admitted, that the bills accomplish what both sides of the house demand as effential. The end is completely answered, fo far as the direct and immediate object is

concerned.

But though there are no direct, yet there are various collateral objections made; objections from the effects which this plan of reform for Indian administration may have on the privileges of great publick bodies in England; from its probable influence on the conftitutional rights, or on the freedom and integrity of the several branches of the legiflature.

Before I answer thefe objections, I must beg leave to obferve, that if we are not able to contrivé fome method of governing India well, which will not of neceffity become the means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for their eternal feparation; but none for facrificing the people of that country to our constitution. I am however far from being perfuaded that any fuch incompatibility of intereft does at all exist. On the contrary I am certain that every means, effectual to preferve India from oppreffion, is a guard to preferve the British conftitution from its worst cor