subjects of their legal privileges. The restraint, being plain and simple, must be easily understood by those who would be brought with great difficulty, to comprehend the intricate detail of matters of fact, which render this suspension of the administration of India absolutely necessary on motives of justice, of policy, of public honor, and public safety. The house of commons had not been able to devise a method, by which the redress of grievances could be effected through the authors of those grievances; nor could they imagine how corruptions could be purified by the corrupters and the corrupted; nor do we conceive, how any reformation can proceed from the known abettors and supporters of the persons who have been guilty of the misdemeanors which parliament has reprobated, and who for their own ill purposes have given countenance to a false and delusive state of the company's affairs, fabricated to mislead parliament, and to impose upon the nation.* Your commons feel, with a just resentment, the inadequate estimate which your ministers have formed of the importance of this great concern. They call on us to act upon the principles of those who have not inquired into the subject; and to condemn those who, with the most laudable diligence, have examined and scrutinized every part of it. The deliberations of parliament have been broken; the season of the year is unfavorable; many of us are new members, who must be wholly unacquainted with the subject, which lies remote from the ordinary course of general information. We are cautioned against an infringement of the constitution; and it is impossible to know, what the secret advisers of the crown, who have driven out the late ministers for their * The purpose of the misrepresentation being now completely answered, there is no doubt but the committee in this parliament, appointed by the ministers themselves, will justify the grounds upon which the last parliament proceeded; and will lay open to the world, the dreadful state of the company's affairs, and the grossness of their own calumnies upon this head. By delay, the new assembly is come to this disgraceful situation, of allowing a dividend of eight per cent. by act of parliament, without the least matter before them to justify the granting of any dividend at all. conduct in parliament, and have dissolved the late parliament for a pretended attack upon prerogative, will consider as such an infringement. We are not furnished with a rule, the observance of which can make us safe from the resentment of the crown, even by an implicit obedience to the dictates of the ministers who have advised that speech: we know not how soon those ministers may be disavowed; and how soon the members of this house, for our very agreement with them, may be considered as objects of his majesty's displeasure. Until by his majesty's goodness and wisdom the late example is completely done away, we are not free. We are well aware, in providing for the affairs of the east, with what an adult strength of abuse, and of wealth and influence growing out of that abuse, his majesty's commons had, in the last parliament, and we still have, to struggle. We are sensible that the influence of that wealth, in a much larger degree and measure than at any former period, may have penetrated into the very quarter from whence alone any real reformation can be expected.* If, therefore, in the arduous affairs recommended to us, our proceedings should be ill adapted, feeble and ineffectual; if no delinquency should be prevented, and no delinquent should be called to account; if every person should be caressed, promoted, and raised in power, in proportion to the enormity of his offences; if no relief should be given to any of the natives unjustly dispossessed of their rights, jurisdictions, and properties; if no cruel and unjust exactions shall be forborne; if the source of no peculation, or oppressive gain should be cut off; if, by the omission of the opportunities that were in our hands, our Indian empire should fall into ruin irretrievable, and in its fall crush the credit, and overwhelm the revenues of this country, we stand acquitted to our honor, and to our conscience, who have reluctantly seen the weightiest interests of our country, at times the most critical to its dignity and safety, rendered the sport of the inconsiderate and unmeasured ambition of individuals, and by that means the wisdom of his majesty's government degraded in the public estimation, and the policy and character of this renowned nation rendered contemptible in the eyes of all Europe. It passed in the negative. * This will be evident to those who consider the number and description of directors and servants of the East India Company, chosen into the present parliament. The light in which the present ministers hold the labors of the house of commons, in searching into the disorders in the Indian administration, and all its endeavors for the reformation of the government there, without any distinction of times, or of the persons concerned, will appear from the following extract from a speech of the present lord chancellor. After making a high-flown panegyric on those whom the house of commons had condemned by their resolutions, he said "Let us not be misled by reports from committees of another house, to which, I again repeat, I pay as much attention, as I would do to the history of Robinson Crusoe. Let the conduct of the East India Company be fairly and fully inquired into; let it be acquitted or condemned by evidence brought to the bar of the house. Without entering very deep into the subject, let me reply in a few words to an observation which fell from a noble and learned lord, that the company's finances are distressed, and that they owe at this moment, a million sterling, to the nation. When such a charge is brought, will parliament in its justice forget that the company is restricted from employing that credit, which its great and flourishing situation gives to it?" SPEECH ON THE MOTION MADE FOR PAPERS RELATIVE TO THE DIRECTIONS FOR CHARGING THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S PRIVATE DEBTS TO EUROPEANS, ON THE REVENUES OF THE CARNATIC. FEBRUARY 28th, 1785. WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING SEVERAL DOCUMENTS. Ἐνταῦθα τί πράττειν ἐχρῆν ἄνδρα τῶν Πλάτωνος καὶ ̓Αριστοτέλους ζηλωτὴν δογμάτων ; ἄρα περιορᾶν ἀνθρώπους ἀθλίους τοῖς κλέπταις ἐκδιδομένους, ἢ κατὰ δύναμιν αὐτοῖς ἀμύνειν, οἶμαι, ὡς ἤδη τὸ κύκνειον ἐξάδουσι διὰ τὸ θεομισὲς ἐργαστήριον τῶν τοιούτων ; Ἐμοὶ μὲν οὖν αἰσχρὸν εἶναι δοκεῖ τοῦς μὲν χιλιάρχους, ὅταν λείπωσι τὴν τάξιν, καταδικάζειν τὴν δὲ ὑπὲρ ἀθλίων ἀνθρώπων ὑπολείπειν τάξιν, ὅταν δέη πρὸς κλέπτας ἀγωνίζεσθαι τοιούτους· καὶ ταῦτα τοῦ Θεοῦ συμμαχοῦντος ἡμῖν, ὥσπερ οὖν ἔταξεν. JULIANI Epist. 17. |