House as if it had been the parliament of Paris. If the minister chose to pursue the American war, what had he to do, but to bring the edict, and it was instantly registered! If he wanted more money, no matter how much nor how ill the people could afford it, the moment the edict was produced by the minister, the House registered it, and granted the money! Let the minister want to impose an additional weight of taxes, what had he to do, more than to come down with an edict, and it was instantly registered, and the taxes imposed! In short, for years, the minister had founded his whole system of government on edicts, which that House had most complyingly registered. He defended the Bill in a very liberal manner, and made a distinction between such parts as struck him as reprehensible, and such as he saw in a contrary point of view. On the question being put, that the words" be abolished" stand after the words "treasurer of the chamber," the committee divided: For the motion, 158; Against it, 211. Mr. Burke having lost this point, declared his indifference to what became of the rest of the Bill. Mr. Fox, however, roused him to his wonted attention to it, by arguing on the necessity of their still going through with the Bill, and if they got ever so little more than they had already gained, it would be worth the striving for. Even, he said, if they could not obtain more than the abolition of the seven lords of trade, he should, after having gone through the Bill, think that had been worth the struggle, because, as he was determined, and he doubted not but his hon. friend would join with him in renewing the Bill from session to session, till they effected the wished for purpose of demolishing the influence of the crown, they would have seven of the enemy less to fight against. Mr. Burke admitted the force of the argument. The committee then went through the whole of the clause, negativing every part of it. Debate in the Commons respecting the Renewal of the East India Company's Charter.] March 21. Lord North said, he had for some time past expected that he should have received proposals from the East India Company for a renewal of their charter, but as none had come, he thought it his duty to inform the House, that agreeably to certain stipulations in various acts of parliament, the East India Company's charter would have three years to come of it, from the 25th of March, but as the stile had been altered since the bargain was originally made, the new stile changed the day, and carried it forward to the 5th of April, from which day, therefore, the Company had three years right to an exclusive trade to the East Indies, but no more, provided that parliament gave notice to pay them off the 4,200,000l. which was due to them from the public on or after that day. His lordship owned he had seen certain propositions, which he had thought might have been made the basis of a treaty for a new charter, but on the directors referring them to the general court, they had been reprobated by the majority of the proprietors, and other propositions had been framed, and sent to him, which he thought were by no means such as the public ought to accede to. He stated the right of the public either to the whole of the territorial acquisitions and revenues, or if the Company were allowed to hold the exclusive trade longer, to a participation of the profits: the Company however not having offered him such propositions as appeared fit for him to treat upon, it was his duty to state the matter to the House, and to make the necessary motion. In order to ground it properly, he moved that "The 17th Geo. 2 be read." He then moved "That notice be given, that the capital stock or debt of 4,200,000l. and all arrears of annuity due and payable in respect thereof from the public to the united company of merchants trading to the East Indies will be redeemed and paid off on the 10th of April 1783, agreeable to the power of redemption in the said Act." Mr. Fox rose to give a negative to the motion. He asked whether the noble lord was not content with having lost America? Or was he determined not to quit the situation in which he stood, till he had reduced the dominions of the crown to the confines of Great Britain? What good could the present motion be attended with, or rather, what evil might it not produce? The motion was a threat, and the idlest of all possible menaces, because it was made at a time, when the noble lord knew in his own mind, that he neither intended nor was capable of carrying it into execution. Why, then, throw it out, unless the noble lord wished to ruin the East India Company's possessions in India, and to deprive this country of the ample revenue she received through the commerce and trade of that Company? It was ridiculous, it was dangerous to threaten, when men dared not perform what they threatened. Let the noble lord, let the House, turn their eyes to the probable consequences of that threat! Good God, what a scene of anarchy, confusion, distress, and ruin, would it not occasion! Supposing even for a moment that the noble lord really intended putting his threat in execution, and was capable of doing it, must not the public suffer considerably? How was the money to be paid off? Did not the noble lord know he was obliged to pay the debt at par, and therefore as the 4,200,000l. stood at the interest of 3 per cent. and 3 per cents. were at 60, the public must necessarily lose a clear 40 per cent. by every 100%. they paid off. But how was the noble lord to secure the revenues which the public were to derive from the territorial acquisitions of the Company? How was he to get them home? Did not the noble lord know that the Company was the best medium through which they could possibly pass? Had he a plan for any new company, and had he a design to establish a new company on the ruins of the present? Was that the noble lord's gratitude to those to whom his country was so highly obliged, as the present East India Company? The noble lord must know that he could not by law grant an exclusive trade to a new company, and where would his new company, if any such project he had in view, get their capital? He must know that the Company would laugh at his idle menace; at least he hoped to God they would, and not take it as a serious matter, meant to be followed by the paying off the 4,200,000l. If they did, woe be to the revenue, woe be to the public, woe to all our acquisitions in India! The Company, if they expected a dissolution, might put every thing in India to the risk, in order to get home as large a stock as possible, that their ultimate dividend might be swelled. Thus their present industry, serviceable and beneficial as it was to themselves and to the public, would be directed from its course, and be rendered dangerous and prejudicial to the public in the extremest degree. He said, he had seen in newspapers, the propositions agreed on by the general court of proprietors and rejected by the noble lord. They certainly were not altogether such as he should approve, but comparatively considered with a dissolu tion of the Company, they were most advantageous and desirable. The one must lead to certain ruin, the other to great wealth and great revenue. He imputed the bad understanding between the Company and the noble lord, to the noble lord's having attempted to possess himself of the patronage of the Company, and having by the means of his secretary endeavoured to carry every thing his own way in Leadenhall-street, declaring that he supposed they would not, on that account, treat with the noble lord at all. After a variety of warm expressions, all tending to support the idea that ruin would follow to the revenue derived from the commerce of the Company, and that we should lose all we had acquired in India, if parliament broke with them, and seriously gave them the notice the noble lord had moved, he concluded, with earnestly exhorting the noble lord to change his intention, and not to act hostilely against the Company, at least at present. Lord North denied in the most direct terms his having ever attempted to possess himself of the patronage of the Company; the imputation was wholly unmerited by him, and the assertion was not founded in fact. He had, as he had frequently said, occasionally recommended a person, but he defied any man to prove, that he had ever once aimed at obtaining the patronage of the Company; the gentlemen with whom he had from time to time treated, would, he doubted not, do him the justice to declare, that from what had passed on those occasions, there was not the least appearance of his having, or wishing to have, the patronage, which had been alluded to. The hon. gentleman had called his motion a threat and a menace; he begged leave to say, that it was not meant as a threat; it was meant merely as putting in a claim on the behalf of the public, to the reversion of a right which undoubtedly belonged to them, at that moment when it was especially proper that it should be formally made. Did gentlemen consider, that if the notice was not now given, the Company would unavoidably hold in their possession that which ought in three years (unless a proper satisfaction was made for a new lease) to revert to the public, longer than they ought to hold it, and longer than it was intended that they should hold it, when the charter was renewed, as was then expressly stipulated. The hon. gentleman had declared that the East In dia Company would laugh at the notice, because they must know that it could not be seriously intended; it would be the East India Company's fault if the notice was carried into execution. But he would not have the hon. gentleman suppose that if the present Company broke up and divided their stock, the public would, as a necessary consequence, lose the revenues arising from the territorial acquisitions in India. He trusted there were means of securing both the one and the other. He did not wish to break with the Company, he did not desire to drive them to the necessity of a dissolution, but the Company ought not to imagine that the public lay at their mercy. The public had a right to look for great resources from the Company, and from the territorial acquisitions in India. The Company as it was now established, he was free to own, was the best medium of bringing home the revenues from the Indies; but if the Company were so unreasonable and so thoughtless as not to come to a fair bargain with the public, a new company might be formed, and such plans adopted as might remedy the evil threatened to the revenue. Mr. Burke said he execrated the narrow idea of bargaining with the East India Company as if we were treating with an enemy, and on the supposition, that every thing we did not get by the bargain, was so much loss to us. He reprobated the intention to give notice to the Company, according to the motion, as the most wicked, absurd, abandoned, profligate, mad, and drunken intention, that ever was formed. He reprehended also in the strongest terms of ridicule the speculation of a new company, declaring, that like a new Mississippi scheme, it was only fit for such a bubble projector as Mr. Law: he asserted in round and direct terms, that the attempt would be big with ruin to all who ventured on it: he allowed that in this country, there might always be found men enough who were ready to bite at a bubble, but declared, that those who were so weak and incautious as to join in such a mad and drunken scheme, would lose their all by it. This, it might be said, was mere speculation, so was the noble lord's idea of a new company, and till they were tried, his speculation was as good as the noble lord's. He contended that parliament were not ripe to come to a decision on a point of so much importance, as that of giving the East India Company notice, that parliament would pay off the 4,200,000l. Before the House attempted that rash step, before the noble lord hazarded his speculation of a new company, the state of the Company's accounts ought to be laid before them, the state of the acquisitions in India, the state of the revenues, and every other paper and document that could enable the House to form an opinion and judge for themselves. He repeatedly asserted, that they were not yet ripe to form any such opinion or any such judgment. It was the rapacity of the minister to gain a great revenue from America, that had lost us the thirteen colonies. Let that be a warning to the House not to let the revenue mislead them again. Let them regard the East India Company as their friends, as their best commercial allies, and as their brethren. The noble lord talked of the public, and the rights of the public; the East India Company was a part of that public; as dear to the House, and as worthy their attention, as the noble lord and his speculations of revenue, as any minister who now did or ever had existed. After pursuing the subject with great animation, and in the most glowing terms, Mr. Burke spoke more coolly, and said, he asked pardon if he had been betrayed into too much warmth, but the vast importance of the subject had impressed itself so strongly on his feelings, that it was impossible for him, on hearing such a fatal, such an alarming motion, to speak of it with moderation. He urged the noble lord not to press the motion at present, and concluded with moving the previous question. Mr. Gregory expressed a wish, that government would come to some agreement, without treating on the conditions in parliament. He agreed with both the hon. gentlemen, that the House ought not to enter into the business in a precipitate manner, but consider it with all possible caution and circumspection; an affair which, in his opinion, called for the united wisdom of the ablest men in the kingdom. He professed his readiness to assist in giving the best information which a residence of upwards of 20 years in the East Indies had enabled him to collect ; and earnestly recommended to both sides of the House, to consider the question as a great question of state, in which the interest, power, and dignity of this country were most essentially concerned. Mr. Rous described the interior of the country, and the mismanagements and oppressions committed by the nominal servants of the Company, who were countenanced and supported by a faction in government at home. The government, it was true, was carried on under the name of the Company, according to the forms of its constitution; but it was equally true, that ministers here had created a power and interest on the spot, which defeated every measure adopted in Leadenhall-street. In a recent instance, well known, government had been subverted there. He then spoke of the arrest and imprisonment of lord Pigot, and entered into several of the particulars which came out in that transaction. Mr. Stratton rose to justify his conduct: he said, the government had not been subverted; that the steps taken on that occasion were necessary, and prevented the subversion which had been unjustly attributed to the actors of that busi ness. and as to any private treaty with the nabob, he could repeat upon his honour, that he never was a party to any treaty with him, nor did not believe any such supposed treaty ever existed. He acted from a sense of duty, and was ready to contend, that the conduct of the majority of the council originated in motives, not of choice, but of the most extreme necessity. The Attorney General observed, that no man was more ready to give credit to the assertion of a gentleman given upon his honour than he was; but private assurances, however respectable, had no weight with him, when they militated against public judgments, legally and solemnly pronounced. Nay, he would go farther, not even oaths. The hon. gentleman had been convicted by the verdict of a jury, by the legal and constitutional voice of his country, of having subverted the government of Madras. He was not therefore permitted to doubt of the fact, so far as Mr. Rous was astonished how the hon. | that went. As to the hon. gentleman's ingentleman could pretend to say, that the tentions, as set forth in his affidavits sworn government at Madras was not subverted. to in common with others, he by no means The hon. gentleman disclaimed the having intended to controvert the truth of them. any concern or any thing to do with the Whatever they might be, however true, claim of Mr. Benfield on the rajah's still he was entitled to say, that the charge country, under the pretence of money of having subverted the government was lent to the nabob, on the revenues, or not only proved, but declared by the judg crop; but when the hon. gentleman was ment of his peers. It was not his business, so ready to pledge his honour, as having in that place, to review the sentence no concern with Mr. Benfield, would he passed upon the hon. gentleman and his go a little farther, and pledge it, that nei- colleagues. The court did not think ther he, nor the persons with whom in that the facts found were such, or so this transaction he had acted, entered into laid, as to justify the sentence prayed by no private treaty with the nabob, his sons, him, acting under the direction of that or his agents, for defeating the purposes House. The court might have, in so for which lord Pigot was sent out by the doing, acted very properly; but still the Company, namely, the restoration of material part of the charge was maintainthe rajah of Tanjore to his dominions, ed, though the intention of the offenders which had been wrested from him by the so far wrought on the court, as to mitigate aid of those very persons, who afterwards the severity of the sentence. The arguopposed that prince's restoration; and ment of intention, if carried its full length, when they found that impracticable, op- would go to the impeachment of the senposed the giving the rajah the possession tence, as well as the verdict. That he of his country, unless he acknowledged believed was not what the hon. gentleman himself bound to repay what they pre- meant; he spoke, he presumed, to the tended to have advanced to the nabob on measure of the punishment, not to say the revenues of Tanjore. that no punishment was due, because no crime had been committed. Mr. Stratton repeated his former assertion, that the government had not been subverted; that he had undergone a trial for the facts now charged against him; that the sentence upon that trial plainly shewed, that none of the persons concerned in the arrest of lord Pigot were deemed as having intended to subvert government; Sir G. Wombwell denied that administration had improperly interfered in the affairs of the East India Company. They had done nothing but their duty. The public, upon a renewal of the charter, had most certainly a right to impose terms upon the East India Company, and had no other bounds in dictating those terms than the general interest. That general interest could be no otherwise supported than by fair, equitable, practicable terms on the part of government. If they were such as the Company would not be able to perform, the consequence would be, that the Company must be ruined, and the nation be disappointed; in truth, their interest was so inseparably connected, that it was impossible to serve or hurt one without materially serving or hurting the other. This being his opinion, he supported the propositions made by the noble lord to the directors in the general court; because, though perhaps they did not meet exactly his ideas, they afforded a proper basis for a treaty, to be afterwards modelled in parliament. The proprietors propositions stood partly in the same predicament, though farther removed off the true ground; but this he would say, that either or both contained matter very fit for parliamentary discussion, where they must come, in any event, at last to receive the sanction of the legislature. The present motion, besides being sanctioned by the authority of an act of parliament, naturally led to that point. It would of course bring the whole business under the consideration of that House, where only it could be finally adjusted. or landholder, instead of labouring for himself and the state, was compelled to labour only for the lord of the soil. He would appeal to gentlemen's experience and feelings, whether that country must not in the end be ruined or depopulated where such a policy prevails. This might be excused in some measure, in those whose religion, manners, and policy taught them to suppose, that the many were created for the purposes of administering to the enjoyments, happiness, and dignity of the few; but under an English government, such an idea was to the last degree preposterous, impolitic, and absurd. What, however, had the East India Company done? They had copied the barbarous policy of those to whose possessions they succeeded; they had copied the same system of oppression, by which at length they defeated the only end such a system could answer, that of enormous sums drawn from the sweat and toil of the miserable inhabitants. To reform this shameful abuse ought to be, in his opinion, one great object with parliament. He thought the people, besides the scanty subsistence they drew from their labour and industry, ought to have an interest, a stake in the government of the country they lived in; they should be rewarded for their industry. It would hold them by ties the most inThe Attorney General went very fully dissoluble to a government which held into the subject of the local government out personal rewards for honest industry. in India. He said it was conducted upon It would create an affection and attachvery improper ideas, and called most loud- ment; it would render them not only usely for the interference of that House, ful, but dutiful and loyal subjects; but where only the evil could be corrected. above all, it would give a permanency and About forty years since a system of op- stability to our government, which could pression had been adopted by the Indian not be acquired by any strength or terror princes. A series of usurpations, strug-derived merely from the superior skill and gles, and civil wars, first gave birth to it. Princes were deposed, competitors daily rose up, and usurpations almost yearly happened within the empire of Indostan. The victor or usurper, having acquired dominion by force and violence, had no interest in the dominion thus acquired. He looked upon his throne to be held by a very precarious tenure, and of course endeavoured, by extortion and oppression, to amass money during his temporary government, for the purpose of enabling him to defend his crown against the next competitor, or to render himself a rich individual when it should become his turn to be dispossessed. Hence the subject was oppressed beyond measure. The full value of the soil, that being the source of all revenue in India, was taken, and the tenant bravery of our troops. The British subjects in Indostan must soon see the difference between them and the subjects of the Mahometan and native princes. This, sooner or later, would naturally lay a foundation of strength and internal prosperity, which would render our possessions in that country as permanent as any one part of the British empire. He would therefore recommend to the House, when the affairs of the Company came before it, to pay a special attention to this particular. The present territorial revenue, as he heard in the course of the debate, had been stated at 3,400,000l. per annum. He would maintain, that though some defalcation should be made in the rents to the landholders, that defalcation would be amply made up in other respects. The |