in force and not repealed by or repugnant to this act, shall be deemed and taken to be applicable to the commissioners, to be nominated as aforesaid.

XX. And be it enacted, that the lord president of the council, the lord privy seal, the first lord of the treasury, the principal secretaries of state, and the chancellor of the exchequer for the time being, shall, by virtue of their respective offices, be, and they are hereby declared to be, commissioners for the affairs of India, in conjunction with the persons to be nominated in any such commission as aforesaid, and they shall have the same powers respectively as if they had been expressly nominated in such commission, in the order in which they are herein mentioned, next after the commissioners first named therein.

XXI. And be it enacted, that any two or more of the said commissioners shall and may form a board for executing the several powers which by this act, or by any other act, or acts, are or shall be given to or vested in the commissioners for the affairs of India; and the commissioner first named in any such letters patent or commission, for the time being, shall be the president of the said board; and that when any board shall be formed in the absence of the president, the commissioner next in order of nomination, in this act or in the said commission, of those who shall be present, shall for that turn preside at the said board.

XXII. And be it enacted, that if the commissioners present at any board shall be equally divided in opinion with respect to any matter by them discussed, then and on every such occasion the president, or in his absence the commissioner acting as such, shall have two voices or the casting vote.

XXIII. And be it enacted, that the said board shall and may nominate and appoint two secretaries, and such other officers as shall be necessary, to attend upon the said board, who shall be subject to dismissal at the pleasure of the said board; and each of the said secretaries shall have same powers, right, and privileges as by any act or acts now in force are vested in the chief secretary of the commissioners for the affairs of India; and that the president of the said board, but no other commissioner as such, and the said secretaries and other officers, shall be paid by the said company, such fixed salaries as his majesty shall by any warrant or warrants, under his sign manual, countersigned by the chancellor of the exchequer, for the time being, direct.

XXIV. And be it enacted, that if at any time the said board shall deem it expedient to require the secretaries and other officers of the said board, or any of them, to take an oath of secrecy, and for the execution of the duties of their respective stations, it shall be lawful for the said board to administer such oath as they shall frame for the purpose.

XXV. And be it enacted, that the said board shall have and be invested with full power and authority to superintend, direct, and control all acts, operations, and concerns of the said company, which in anywise relate to or concern the government or revenues of the said territories, or the property hereby vested in the said company in trust as aforesaid, and all grants of salaries, gratuities, and allowances, and all other payments and charges whatever, out of or upon the said revenues and property respectively, except as hereinafter is mentioned.

XXVI. And be it enacted, that the several persons who, on the said twentysecond day of April, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, shall be commissioners for the affairs of India, and secretaries and officers of such board of commissioners, shall continue and be commissioners for the affairs of India, and secretaries and officers of the said board respectively, with the same powers and subject to the same restriction as to salaries, as if they had been appointed by virtue of this act, until by the issuing of new patent, commissions, or otherwise, their appointments shall be respectively revoked.

XXVII. And be it enacted, that if, upon the occasion of taking any ballot on the election of a director or directors of the said company, and proprietor who shall be resident within the United Kingdom, shall, by reason of absence, illness, or otherwise, be desirous of voting by letter of attorney, he shall be at liberty so to do, provided that such letter of attorney shall in every case express the name or names of the candidate or candidates for whom such proprietor shall be so desirous of voting, and shall be executed within ten days next before such election; and the attorney constituted for such purpose shall, in every case, deliver the vote he is so directed to give, openly to the person who shall be authorised by the said company to receive the same, and every such vote shall be accompanied by an affidavit or affirmation to be made before a justice of the peace by the proprietor, directing the same so to be given, to the same or the like effect as the oath or affirmation now taken by proprietors voting upon ballots at general courts of the said company, and in which such proprietors shall also state the day of the execution of such letter of attorney; and any person making a false oath or affirmation before a justice of the peace, for the purpose aforesaid, shall be held to have thereby committed wilful perjury; and if any person do unlawfully or corruptly procure or suborn any other person to take the said oath or affirmation before a justice of the peace as aforesaid, whereby he or she shall commit such wilful perjury, and shall thereof be convicted, he, she, or they, for every such offence, shall incur such pains and penalties as are provided by law against subornation of perjury.

XXVIII. And be it enacted, that so much of the act of the thirteenth year of the reign of King George the Third, intituled an act for establishing certain regulations for the better management of the affairs of the East India company, as well in India as in Europe, as enacts that no person employed in any civil or military station in the East Indies, or claiming or exercising any power, authority, or jurisdiction therein, shall be capable of being appointed or chosen into the office of director until such person shall have returned to and been resident in England for the space of two years, shall be and is hereby repealed; provided that if the said court of directors, with the consent of the said board, shall declare such person to an accountant with the said company, and that his accounts are unsettled, or that a charge against such person is under the consideration of the said court, such person shall not be capable of being chosen into the office of director for the term of two years after his return to England, unless such accounts shall be settled, or such charge be decided on, before the expiration of the said term.

XXIX. And be it further enacted, that the said court of directors shall, from time to time deliver to the said board, copies of all minutes, orders, resolutions, and proceedings of all courts of proprietors, general or special, and of all courts of directors, within eight days after the holding of such courts respectively, and also copies of all letters, advices, and despatches whatever, which shall at any time or times be received by the said court of directors or any committee of directors, and which shall be material to be communicated to the said board, or which the said board shall from time to time require.

XXX. And be it enacted, that no orders, instructions, despatches, official letters, or communications whatever, relating to the said territories, or the government thereof, or to the property or rights vested in the said company in trust, as aforesaid, or to any public matters whatever, shall be at any time sent or given by the said court of directors, or any committee of the said directors, until the same shall have been submitted for the consideration of and approved by the said board: and for that purpose that copies of all such orders, instructions, despatches, official letters, or communications, which the said court of directors, or any committee of the said directors, shall purpose to be sent or given, shall be by them previously laid before the said board, and that within the space of two months after the receipt of such proposed orders, instructions, despatches, official letters, or communications, the said board shall either return the same to the said court of directors or committee of directors, with their approbation thereof, signified under the hand of one of the secretaries of the said board, by the order of the said board; or, if the said board shall disapprove, alter, or vary in substance any of such proposed orders, instructions, despatches, official letters, or communications, in every such case the said board shall give to the said directors, in writing, under the hand of one of the secretaries of the said board, by order of the said board, their reason in respect thereof, together with their directions to the said directors in relation thereto; and the said directors shall, and they are hereby required, forthwith to send the said orders, instructions, despatches, official letters, or communications, in the form approved by the said board, to their proper destinations. Provided always, that it shall be lawful for the said board, by minutes from time to time to be made for that purpose, and entered on the records of the said board, and to be communicated to the said court, to allow such classes of orders, instructions, despatches, official letters, or communications as shall in such minutes be described to be sent or given by the said court, without having been previously laid before the said board.

XXXI. And be it enacted, that whenever the said court of directors shall omit to prepare and submit for the consideration of the said board any orders, instructions, despatches, official letters, or communications, beyond the space of fourteen days after requisition made to them by order of the said board, it shall and may be lawful to and for the said board, to prepare and send to the said directors any orders, instructions, despatches, official letters, or communications, together with their directions relating thereto; and the said directors shall, and they are hereby required, forthwith to transmit the same to their proper destinations.

XXXII. Provided always, and be it enacted, that nothing herein contained, shall extend, or be construed to extend, to restrict or prohibit the said directors from expressing, within fourteen days, by representation in writing, to the said board, such remarks, observations or explanations as they shall think fit, touching or concerning any directions which they shall receive from the said board; and that the said board shall, and they are hereby required to take every such representation, and the several matters therein contained or alleged, into their consideration, and to give such further directions thereupon, as they shall think fit and expedient, which shall be final and conclusive upon the said directors. XXXIII. And be it enacted, that if it shall appear to the said court of directors, that any orders, instructions, despatches, official letters or communications, except such as shall pass through the said board as aforesaid, are contrary to law, it shall be in the power of the said board and the said court of directors, to send a special case, to be agreed upon by and between them, and to be signed by the president of the said board and the chairman of the said company, to three or more of the judges of his majesty's court of king's bench, for the opinion of the said judges; and the said judges are hereby required to certify their opinion upon any case so submitted to them, and to send a certificate thereof to the said president and chairman, which opinion shall be final and conclusive.

XXXIV. Provided always, and be it enacted and declared, that the said board shall not have the power of appointing any of the servants of the said company, or of directing or interfering with the officers and servants of the said company, employed in the home establishment, nor shall it be necessary for the said court

of directors to submit for the consideration of the said board, their communications with the officers or servants employed in their said home establishment, or with legal advisers of the company.

XXXV. And be it enacted, that the said court of directors shall, from time to time, appoint a secret committee, to consist of any number not exceeding three of the said directors, for the particular purposes in this act specified; which said directors so appointed shall, before they or any of them shall act in the execution of the powers and trusts hereby reposed in them, take an oath of the tenor following: (that is to say),

"I, (A.B.) doswear, that I will, according to the best of my skill and judgment, faithfully execute the several trusts and powers reposed in me as a member of the secret committee appointed by the court of directors of the India company; I will not disclose or make known any of the secret orders, instructions, despatches, official letters, or communications which shall be sent or given to me by the commissioners for the affairs of India, save only to the other members of the said secret committee, or to the person or persons who shall be duly nominated and employed in transcribing or preparing the same respectively, unless I shall be authorised by the said commissioners to disclose and make known the same. " So help me God."

Which said oath shall and may be administered by the several and respective members of the said secret committee to each other; and being so by them taken and subscribed, shall be recorded by the secretary or deputy-secretary of the said court of directors for the time being, amongst the acts of the said court.

XXXVI. Provided also, and be it enacted, that if the said board shall be of opinion, that the subject matter of any of their deliberations concerning the levying war or making peace, or treating or negotiating with any of the native princes or states in India, or with any other princes or states, or touching the policy to be observed with respect to such princes or states, intended to be communicated in orders, despatches, official letters, or communications to any of the governments of presidencies in India, or to any officers or servants of the said company, shall be of a nature to require secrecy, it shall and may be lawful for the said board to send their orders, despatches, official letters, or communications to the secret committee of the said court of directors, to be appointed as is by this act directed, who shall thereupon, without disclosing the same, transmit the same according to the tenor thereof, or pursuant to the directions of the said board, to the respective governments and presidencies, officers and servants, and that said governments, presidencies, and officers and servants, shall be bound to pay a faithful obedience, hereby in like manner as if such orders, despatches, official letters, or communications had been sent to them by the said court of directors.

XXXVII. And be it enacted, that the said court of directors shall, before the twenty-second day of April, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, and afterwards, from time to time, so often as reduction of the establishment of the said court or other circumstances may require, frame and submit to the said board an estimate of the gross sum, which will be annually required for the salaries of the chairman, deputy-chairman, and members of the said court, and the officers and secretaries thereof, and all other proper expenses fixed and contingent thereof, and of general courts of proprietors; and such estimate shall be subject to reduction by the said board, so that the reasons of such reduction to be given to the said court of directors; and any sum, not exceeding the sum mentioned in such estimate, or (if the same shall be reduced) in such reduced estimate, shall be annually applicable, at the discretion of the court of directors, to the payment of the said salaries and expenses; and it shall not be lawful for the said board to interfere with or control the particular application thereof, or

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to direct what particular salaries or expenses shall from time to time be increased or reduced; provided always, that such and the same accounts shall be kept and rendered of the sums to be applied in defraying the salaries and expenses aforesaid as of the other branches of the expenditure of the said company.

XXXVIII. And be it enacted, that the territories now subject to the government of the presidency of Fort William in Bengal, shall be divided into two distinct presidencies, one of such presidencies, in which shall be included Fort William aforesaid, to be styled the presidency of Fort William in Bengal, and the other of such presidencies to be styled the presidency of Agra; and that it shall be lawful for the said court of directors, under the control by this act provided, and they are hereby required, to declare and appoint what part or parts of any of the territories under the government of the said company shall from time to time be subject to the government of each of the several presidencies now subsisting or to be established as aforesaid, and from time to time, as occasion may require, to revoke and alter, in the whole or in part, such appointed, and such new distribution of the same, as shall be deemed expedient.

XXXIX. And be it enacted, that the superintendence, direction, and control of the whole civil and military government of all the said territories and revenues in India, shall be and is hereby vested in a governor-general and counsellors, to be styled "The governor-general of India in council."

XL. And be it enacted, that there shall be four ordinary members of the said council, three of whom shall from time to time be appointed by the said court of directors from amongst such persons as shall be or shall have been servants of the said company, and each of the said ordinary members of council shall there at the time of his appointment have been in the service of the said company for at least ten years; and if he shall be in the military service of the said company, he shall not during his continuance in office as a member of council, hold any military command or be employed in actual military duties; and that the fourth ordinary member of council shall, from time to time, be appointed from amongst persons who shall not be servants of the said company, by the said court of directors, subject to the approbation of his majesty, to be signed in writing by his royal sign manual, countersigned by the president of the said board; provided that such last-mentioned member of council shall not be entitled to side or vote in the said council, except for meetings thereof for making laws and regulations: and it shall be lawful for the said court of directors to appoint the commander-in-chief of the company's forces in India; and if there shall be no such commander-in-chief or the offices of such commander-in-chief and of governor-general of India shall be vested in the same person, then the commander-in-chief of the forces on the Bengal establishment to be an extraordinary member of the said council, and such extraordinary member of council shall have rank and precedence at the council board next after the governor-general.

XLI. And be it enacted, that the person who shall be governor-general of the presidency of Fort William in Bengal, on the twenty-second day of April, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, shall be the first governor-general of India under this act, and such persons as shall be members of council of the same presidency on that day, shall be respectively members of the council constituted by this act.

XLII. And be it enacted, that all vacancies happening in the office of governor-general of India, shall, from time to time, be filled up by the said court of directors, subject to the approbation of his majesty, to be signified in writing by his royal sign manual, countersigned by the president of the said board.

XLIII. And be it enacted that the said governor-general in council shall have power to make laws or regulations for repealing, amending, or altering