BOOK upon the previous question, the numbers were XXII. 1784. Mr.Pitt's second 201 to 127. The grand business of the present session, howIndia bill. ever, was the arrangement of a plan for the future government of India. For this purpose Mr. Pitt on the 6th of July brought in a bill, founded on the general principles of that rejected by the former parliament, and to which the Company had now given their slow and reluctant assent. By this bill a BOARD of CONTROL, composed of a certain number of commissioners of the rank of privy-counsellors, was established, the members of which were to be appointed by the king, and removeable at his pleasure. This Board was authorised to check, superintend, and control, the civil and military government and revenue of the Company. The dispatches transmitted by the court of directors to the different presidencies were to be previously subjected to the inspection of the superior board, and counter-signed by them; and the directors were enjoined to pay due obedience to the orders of the Board, touching civil and military government and revenues; and in case such orders do at any time in the opinion of the directors relate to points not connected therewith, they are empowered to appeal to his majesty in council, whose decision is declared final. The bill moreover enacted, that the ap GEORGE III. pointment of the court of directors to the office of governor-general, president, or counsellor in the different presidencies, shall be subject to the ap-. probation and recall of his majesty. As to the zemindars, or great hereditary land-holders of India, who had been violently dispossessed of their property, and who, agreeably to the generous and decisive tenor of Mr. Fox's bill, were to have been universally and peremptorily reinstated in their zemindaries, the present bill provided only that an enquiry should be instituted in order to restore such as should appear to have been irregularly and unjustly deprived. Lastly, an high tribunal was created for the trial of Indian delinquents, consisting of three judges, one from each court, of four peers and six members of the house of commons, who were authorised to judge without appeal-to award in case of conviction the punishments of fine and imprisonment-and to declare the party convicted incapable of serving the East-India Company. These were the grand and leading features of the bill; and the most transient observation sufficed to shew that the objectionable parts of Mr. Fox's bill had been anxiously and completely avoided. The It is remarkable, that not a single zemindar was in fact restored in consequence of this clause; whence some have complaisantly inferred that not a single zemindar was unjustly dispossessed. XXII. BOOK VIL 1784. XXII. 1784. BOOK management of their commercial concerns was left in the hands of the Company, who were divested only of that political power which they had so grossly abused, and of that civil authority to the due exercise of which they were so manifestly incompetent. And this authority was not transferred to persons who, like the commissioners of Mr. Fox, might attempt to establish an unconstitutional influence in parliament, not merely independent of, but in direct opposition to, the regular and constitutional authority of the crown; but in the effort to steer clear of the rock of Scylla, it was evident that Mr. Pitt had plunged into the gulph of Charybdis, and that by this bill a vast accession of influence resulted to the crown, already possessing a dangerous, formidable, and increasing ascendency over the other branches of the legislature. Mr. Fox, with his usual powers of discrimination, attacked the weak and exceptionable parts of this bill, although the utmost energy of his eloquence was found inadequate to excite the general attention of the public to the merits or demerits of the measure in question-prepossessed as they now almost universally were in favour of the minister with whom it originated, and in whom they placed the most entire and unlimited confidence. Mr. Fox urged with great force and animation, that this bill established a weak and XXII. 1784. inefficient government, by dividing its powers. BOOK To the one board belonged the privilege of ordering and contriving measures; to the other, that of carrying them into execution. It was a system of dark intrigue and delusive art. By the negative vested in the commissioners, the CHARTERED RIGHTS of the Company, on which such stress had been laid, were insidiously undermined and virtually annihilated. If it were right to vest such powers in a board of privy counsellors, let it be done explicitly and openly, and shew the Company and the world, that what they dared to do they dared to justify. Founded on principles so heterogeneous, how could such a government be other than the constant victim of internal distraction? The appeal allowed from the decisions of the board of control to the privy-council was affirmed by Mr. Fox to be palpably nugatory and ridiculous. The bill he had introduced exhibited at the first glance the features of openness, fairness, and responsibility. The present plan was full of darkness and disguise. In a covert and concealed mode, an immense patronage was transferred to the crown, which, instead of correcting abuses, opened a door to every species of collusion and corruption. It was calculated to establish an Indian government of the island of Great Britain. Against the clauses of the bill respecting the zemindars, Mr. Fox entered his 1784. BOOK strongest protest. The zemindars ought, in his XXII. opinion, to be rated by a fixed rule of past periods, and not of a vague and indefinite future enquiry. The new tribunal Mr. Fox stigmatized as a screen for delinquents; as a palpable and unconstitutional violation of the sacred right of trial by jury. Since no man was to be tried but on the accusation of the Company or the attorney-general, he had only to conciliate government in order to his remaining in perfect security. It was a part of the general system of deception and delusion, and he would venture to pronounce it a " bed of justice,” where justice would for ever sleep. On the motion of commitment, the numbers were 276 to 61; and it was carried in triumph to the house of peers, where, after an opposition vigorous in point of exertion, but feeble in regard of numbers, the bill passed August 9, 1784. It was accompanied by a protest, in which it was severely branded as a measure ineffectual in its provisions, unjust in its inquisitorial spirit, and unconstitutional in its partial abolition of the trial by jury. Zeal of Mr. the reform India. ઃઃ Amongst those who had chiefly distinguished Burke for themselves in the investigation of Indian affairs, of abuses in and whose indignation had been most strongly awakened at the discovery of the enormous oppression exercised in those distant regions, was Mr. Burke. Agreeably, indeed, to the general |