istered. Ample salaries were provided for them, which indeed removed the necessity, but by no means the inducements, to corruption and oppression. Nor was any barrier whatsoever opposed on the part of the natives against their injustice; except the supreme court of judicature, which never could be capable of controlling a government with such powers, without becoming such a government itself.

There was indeed a prohibition against all concerns in trade to the whole council, and against all taking of presents by any in authority. A right of prosecution in the king's bench was also established; but it was a right, the exercise of which is difficult, and in many, and those the most weighty, cases impracticable. No considerable facilities were given to prosecutions in parliament; nothing was done to prevent complaint from being far more dangerous to the sufferer than injustice to the oppressor. overt acts were fixed, upon which corruption should be presumed, in transactions, of which secrecy and collasion formed the very basis; no rules of evidence, nor authentic mode of transmission, were settled in conformity to the unalterable circumstances of the country and the people.

No

val of

ser

One provision, indeed, was made for restraining the Remo servants, in itself very wise and substantial; a delinquent, once dismissed, could not be restored but by the vante. Votes of three fourths of the directors and three fourths of the proprietors: this was well aimed. But no method was settled for bringing delinquents to the question of removal; and if they should be brought to it a door lay wide open for evasion of the law, and for a return into the service, in defiance of its plain intention; that is, by resigning, to avoid removal; by which measure this provision of the act has proved as unoperative as all the rest. By this management, a mere majority may bring in the greater delinquent, whilst the person, removed for offences comparatively trivial, may remain excluded for

ever.

Council

The new council nominated in the act was composed of two totally discordant elements, which soon distin- general guished themselves into permanent parties. One of the principal instructions, which the three members of the council sent immediately from England, namely, General vide Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, carried out appen with them, was, to "cause the strictest inquiry to be A

dix, No

Par. 35

made into all oppressions and abuses," among which the practice of receiving presents from the natives, at that time generally charged upon men in power, was princi pally aimed at.

Presents to any considerable value were justly reputed by the legislature not as marks of attention and respect, but as bribes or extortions; for which either the beneficial and gratuitous duties of government were sold, or they were the price paid for acts of partiality; or finally, they were sums of money extorted from the givers by the terrors of power. Against the system of presents, therefore, the new commission was, in general opinion, particularly pointed. In the commencement of reformation, at a period when a rapacious conquest had overpowered and succeeded to a corrupt government, an act of indemnity might have been thought advisable; perhaps a new account ought to have been opened; all retrospect ought to have been forbidden, at least to certain periods. If this had not been thought advisable, none in the higher departments of a suspected and decried government ought to have been kept in their posts, until an examination had rendered their proceedings clear, or until length of time had obliterated, by an even course of irreproachable conduct, the errors, which so naturally grow out of a new power. But the policy adopted was different: it was to begin with examples. The cry against the abuses was strong and vehement throughout the whole nation, and the practice of presents was represented to be as general as it was mischievous. In such a case, indeed in any case, it seemed not to be a measure the most provident, without a great deal of previous inquiry, to place two persons, who from their situation must be the most exposed to such imputations, in the commission, which was to inquire into their own conduct; much less to place one of them at the head of that commission, and with a casting vote, in case of an equality. The persons, who could not be liable to that charge, were indeed three to two; but any accidental difference of opinion, the death of any one of them, or his occasional absence or sickness, threw the whole power into the hands of the other two, who were Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell, one the president, and the other high in the council of that establishment, on which the reform was to operate. Thus those, who were liable to process as delinquents, were in effect set over the reformers; and

INDIA

that did actually happen, which might be expected to happen from so preposterous an arrangement, a stop was soon put to all inquiries into the capital abuses.

Nor was the great political end, proposed in the formation of a superintending council over all the presiden-. cies, better answered than that of an inquiry into corraptions and abuses. The several presidencies have acted in a great degree upon their own separate authority, and as little of unity, concert, or regular system has appeared in their conduct, as was ever known before this institution. India is indeed so vast a country, and the settlements are so divided, that their intercourse with each other is liable to as many delays and difficulties as the intercourse between distant and separate states. But one evil may possibly have arisen from an attempt to produce an union, which, though undoubtedly to be aimed at, is opposed in some degree by the unalterable nature of their situation, that it has taught the servants rather to look to a superior among themselves than to their common superiors. This evil, growing out of the abuse of subordination, can only be corrected by a very strict enforcement of authority over that part of the chain of dependence, which is next to the original power.

given

minis

crown.

That which your committee considers as the fifth and Powers last of the capital objects of the act, and as the binding to the regulation of the whole, is the introduction (then for the ters of first time) of the ministers of the crown into the affairs the of the company. The state claiming a concern and share of property in the company's profits, the servants of the crown were presumed the more likely to preserve, with a scrupulous attention, the sources of the great revenues which they were to administer, and for the rise and fall of which they were to render an account.

The interference of government was introduced by this act in two ways; one by a control, in effect by a share, in the appointment to vacancies in the supreme council. The act provided that his majesty's approbation should be had to the persons named to that duty. Partaking thus in the patronage of the company, administration was bound to an attention to the characters and capacities of the persons employed in that high trust.

The other part of their interference was by way of inspection. By this right of inspection, every thing in the company's correspondence from India, which related to the civil or military affairs and government of the com

De

fects in the

pany, was directed by the act to be, within fourteen days. after the receipt, laid before the secretary of state; and every thing, that related to the management of the reve nues, was to be laid before the commissioners of the treasury. In fact, both descriptions of these papers have been generally communicated to that board.

It appears to your committee, that there were great and material defects in both parts of the plan. With replan gard to the approbation of persons nominated to the supreme council by the court of directors, no sufficient means were provided for carrying to his majesty, along with the nomination, the particulars in the conduct of those who had been in the service before, which might render them proper objects of approbation or rejection. The India House possesses an office of record capable of furnishing, in almost all cases, materials for judging on the behaviour of the servants, in their progress from the lowest to the highest stations; and the whole discipline of the service, civil and military, must depend upon an examination of these records inseparably attending every application for an appointment to the highest stations. But in the present state of the nomination, the ministers of the crown are not furnished with the proper means of exercising the power of control intended by the law, even if they were scrupulously attentive to the use of it. There are modes of proceeding favourable to neglect. Others excite inquiry, and stimulate to vigilance.

Proposition to re

nedy

Your committee therefore are of opinion, for the future prevention of cabal, and of private and partial retem presentation, whether above or below, that whenever any person, who has been in the service, shall be recommended to the king's ministers to fill a vacancy in the council general, the secretary of the court of directors shall be ordered to make a strict search into the records of the company; and shall annex to the recommendation the reasons of the court of directors for their choice, together with a faithful copy of whatever shall be found (if any thing can be found) relative to his character and conduct; as also an account of his standing in the company's service; the time of his abode in India; the reasons for his return; and the stations, whether civil or military, in which he has been successively placed.

With this account ought to be transmitted the names of those who were proposed as candidates for the same

office, with the correspondent particulars relative to their conduct and situation; for not only the separate, but the comparative, merit probably would, and certainly ought to have, great influence in the approbation or rejection of the party presented to the ministers of the crown. These papers should be laid before the commissioners of the treasury, and one of the secretaries of state, and entered in books to be kept in the treasury and the secretary's office.

point

coun

sellors,

Mac

ap

ment

bles's

These precautions, in case of the nomination of any Ap who have served the company, appear to be necessary, ment of from the improper nomination and approbation of Mr. sellor John Macpherson, notwithstanding the objections which &c. stood against him on the company's records. The choice pherof Mr. John Stables, from an inferior military to the 's highest civil capacity, was by no means proper, nor an pointencouraging example to either service. His conduct in- Stadeed, in the subaltern military situation, had received, and seems to have deserved, commendation; but no sufficient ground was furnished for confounding the lines and gradations of service. This measure was, however, far less exceptionable than the former; because, an irregular choice of a less competent person, and the preference given to proved delinquency in prejudice to uncensured service, are very different things. But even this latter appointment would in all likelihood have been avoided, if rules of promotion had been established. If such rules were settled, candidates qualified from ability, knowledge, and service, would not be discouraged, by finding that every thing was open to every man; and that favour alone did not stand in the place of civil or military experience. The elevation from the lowest stations unfaithfully and negligently filled to the highest trusts, the total inattention to rank and seniority, and much more the combination of this neglect of rank with a confusion (unaccompanied with strong and evident reasons) of the lines of service, cannot operate as useful examples on those who serve the public in India. These servants, beholding men, who have been condemned for improper behaviour to the company in inferior civil stations, elevated above them, or (what is less blameable, but still mischievous) persons without any distinguished civil talents, taken from the subordinate situations of another line, to their prejudice, will despair, by any good behaviour, of [4]

VOL. VI.