Reform of the East India Company. 157 both to King George III. and the Government that the Court of Proprietors who formed the East India Company was then a complete bear-garden, full of anarchy, confusion, and the most selfish intrigues, and that the direct influence and intimidation which the proprietors exercised over the directors must for ever prove a bar to all good government. And as if to prepare his way by an act of kindness to the tottering East India Company, Lord North took the fatal step of granting them leave to export tea to America duty free, a bonus which led to the tea riots at Boston, and which hurried on indirectly the War of Independence, by which England lost a greater empire in the West than the one which she was beginning to win, by the genius and skill of Clive and Warren Hastings combined, in the East. At the same time Lord North brought in a bill which effected a great alteration in the constitution of the Company. The chief principles of this important measure were the formation of a Supreme Court of Judicature at Bengal, consisting of a chief justice and three puisne judges appointed by the Crown, with great and extended powers in civil and criminal causes over natives and English residents in India alike; and also, what proved of unspeakable importance to Hastings on a memorable occasion, it was entirely independent of the Calcutta Council. The constitution of the Council was entirely remodelled. Henceforth it was to consist of a governor-general with four councillors nominated by the Crown, for the first five years having supreme authority over the other presidencies, after which the right of nomination was to be vested in the Court of Directors, but still subject to the approval of the home Government. It was also enacted that no person serving in India under the Company or the Crown should be allowed to receive presents from any of the native princes or others on any pretence whatever; and that the Governor-General, members of the Council, and judges of the Supreme Court should be forbidden to enter upon any commercial pursuits. Such, in brief, was the "Regulating Act," as it was termed, which was to come into operation in England on October 1st, 1773, and in India on August 1st, 1774. In proceeding to the choice of the first GovernorGeneral of India, there was no difference of opinion as to the person best qualified for this important and difficult post. When, therefore, the Government nominated Warren Hastings to the office of GovernorGeneral, it met with the unanimous approval of all parties concerned. Clive pronounced him to be the right man in the right place; and cordially offered his congratulations on the appointment, though he expresscd a doubt, which the result fully justified, whether his colleagues in the Council would act in harmony with him. And here was the blot, which Clive's profound knowledge of India enabled him to see at a glance, in the working of the new Act. All the four councillors were to have nearly co-extensive powers with the Governor-General, who was only to be allowed a casting vote in the event of the Council being equally divided. Very different from the subsequent construction of the Government, as it has lasted down to the present time, when the GovernorGeneral's voice is supreme, as it ought to be, and The New Council at Calcutta. 159 the other members of the Council are in the position of assessors or advisers. The four councillors named by the Crown, who were to govern the British Empire in India conjointly with Hastings during the next five years, were Mr. Barwell, a tried and experienced servant of the Company, then in India, General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. (afterwards Sir Philip) Francis. Of these three, the first two were mere military ciphers, or rather obedient tools in the hands of the resolute and violent Francis, whose character may be described in a few lines by those who were the best judges; and almost every action of his after life, from the moment of his landing in India until he descended into his grave, "Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung," displays his nature in the worst and most lurid light. Even Macaulay, who would fain throw a veil over the dark spots of his character, from the probability of his having been the author of "Junius," as well as for his association in after days with the illustrious Edmund Burke and other eminent Whigs before the disruption of the party, is obliged to confess that "Francis's hatred was of intense bitterness and long duration." Pitt told him to his face in the House of Commons, even though he sided with him in the matter of impeachment, that his "conduct both in India and in Parliament was most dishonest and malignant." While Hastings himself publicly charged Francis with having deceived him, and with having induced Barwell to quit India with insincere promises which were broken on the first opportunity. "I do not," said Hastings, in a minute recorded on the Consultations of the Government, "I do not trust to Mr. Francis's promises of candour, convinced that he is incapable of it. I judge of his public conduct by his private, which I have found to be void of truth and honour." Such was the character of the man who ruled the majority of the Council which presided over the destinies of the British Empire in India; and it is not too much to say that if the death of Colonel Monson had not intervened, and by this means restored Hastings to power, of which he had been so foolishly deprived, our rule in Hindostan might have come to an end as rapidly as it had been acquired, leaving behind nothing but the vision of a mighty and ill-starred dream. No sooner had the new councillors arrived at Calcutta, than they commenced their quarrel by studied insults to the Governor-General, and by making the most ridiculous complaints to the directors at home; their first one being that Hastings had only allowed them a salute of seventeen guns from the batteries of Fort William, whereas their highmightinesses considered themselves of sufficient importance to entitle them to a salute of four guns more. No sooner were Francis and his two incompetent followers installed in office, than they instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings, who was supported only by Barwell; condemned all his previous acts, without condescending to examine whether they were just or not; recalled the English resident whom Hastings had sent to Oude, and replaced him by a creature of their own; ordered Colonel Champion to return with his brigade, which |