concurrence of their refpective councils, thereby fubjecting themselves perfonally to answer to their country for what they might do. This claufe effectually put an end to the power of the council, and reduce them to mere cyphers: indeed, the bill went fo far as to put it into the power of a Gover nor General to fufpend perfons at his own pleasure, and without affigning any cause whatfoever. Upon the whole, he did not mean to oppose the bill any farther than to give notice, that he thought many amendments were neceffary. He, therefore, mentioned the fubject rather in a more particular manner than was ufual before the bill was in a Committee; but he had purfued this line of conduct, in order that their Lordships might be prepared to meet the amendments, whether coming from the executive fervants of the Crown or from himfelf, with their fulleft investigation. Lord Sydney remarked, that General Sloper was an officer Lord Sydfor whom he had the higheft regard, nor would he ever con- ney. fent to a claufe in the bill, if that claufe came within the defcriptive intention alluded to. As to what had fallen from the noble Viscount who spoke laft, refpecting refponfibility, he could inform their Lordships, that the Board of Control were refponfible with their lives, their honours, and their names. It was well known they were. If any injury had been done by the abstracting the Commander in Chief from the Council, Board, there were means of retribution. But, furely, the defcriptions of the noble Viscount were not warranted by exifting facts. Tke Earl of Carlile having obferved, that the noble Lords The Ear! in office appeared to contend, that the judicature at home of Cariifle, were refponfible for what they did, expreffed his wishes to know how this could be proved, when the fubject of complaint was shifted from the Board to the Directors, and from the Directors to the Board. This was no idle matter of report, but a fact upon record, to which he could bear perfonal teftimony; a teftimony, from the truth of which, the conclufion was to be drawn. The Directors and the Court of Judicature were fortified and fecured from all refponfibility to the Public; and what must be the refult of this fecurity? The guilty efcape unpunithed, and Indian enormities may continue in the fullness of rapine, plunder, and oppreffion. The palliative offered by the noble Lord in office to the wounded honour of a foldier, could never be ac ceptable. Where was the retribution which could wipe away the difgrace of a parliamentary act of difrefpect to an officer openly appointed by government, and to whofe merit that government paid, in words, the higheft refpect, whilst in deeds they were doing the most effential injury? What palliative could Miniftry offer, that a foldier in fuch a cafe could £ 2 accept? accept? What excufe could they make for an act of perfidy? Neither promotion nor money could excute them, or make him fatisfaction. He was the man of their choice: and defervedly fo, no doubt: but, ftrange to tell, before he had done any thing-almost as foon as he was landed in the place whither he was fent out, he is followed by an act of parliament to degrade him; in fhort, to force him to give up that command with which he was just honoured; but which it was found expedient to make him refign, that the political principles of difappointed confequence at home might be fatisfied. This, in fact, was the origin and truth of the claufe for exempting the Commander in Chief from the Council: for it did not at all anfwer the purposes of the new India fcheme of government, that one perfon high in office should be a watch or a check upon another. It was found neceffary to establish a defpotic government in that part of the world, and to prevent as much as poflible any cries of Afiatic diftrefs, any complaints of Eastern tyranny from reaching the courts of British juftice. He begged that it might not be understood, that he meant even the molt dif tant reflection on the character of the newly-appointed Governor General. He was a man too high in honour, probity and patriotic fpirit, to be bribed by any fet of men in the world. He was a perfon with whom he long held an inti mate acquaintance, and to whofe character, in public as well as in private life, no panegyric, though ever fo high, could do more than common juitice. He much feared, that the unfufpecting difpofition of this noble Lord had laid him open to the fares of political men, and that he, as a bright character of justice, was to be led innocently into a fvite'ef government, where indeed his heart and inclination would never permit him knowingly to er; but where the princi ples of the bill under which he was to act, muft either lead him into unintentional criminality, or into fpeedy refignation. There was one part of this new bill which had efcaped the obfervation of his noble friend, who fpoke on the general fubject, and that was the oath. He begged the Houfe to attend to the circumftance. The India Company gave a man the most abfolute command, under an act of parlia ment, which has a claufe to make him refponfible for his conduct, and then they propofe an oath. Now the question in this refpect was, whether the oath bent him more than the refponfibility, or the refponfibility more than the oathand in another point of view, it was, whether he could with fafety take that oath In the common courfe of reafon it appeared, that he could; and on this account-the path was a folemn declaration, that the Governor General in his confcience and in his judgement, fwore that he was convirid convinced that it was effentially conducive to the interests of the Eaft-India Company, or to the fafety or tranquillity of the poffeffions in India, that the order and refolutions now made, declared and recorded, &c. fhould, and ought to be made in the Council there. Was it poffible that any man laying his hand upon his heart could take fuch an oath, and fay he had fworn the truth? Nay, the oath went farther :— It declared in the fame folemn manner from the mouth of the Governer General, that he conceived himself bound in duty to order and command the fame to be recorded on oppofition, and notwithstanding the diffent of every other member of the Council. A man in this cafe, who accepted the Governor Generalfhip of India, muft have a very complying con fcience upon oath; or, at leaft, a confcience that relies for its purity on the purity of others. How could any man fwear that he was convinced in his judgement and confcience that a matter was abfolutely conducive to the interests of a trading Company, when he has not examined what paffed at home as well as what paffed abroad? and when it was impoffible for him to know, on account of the diftance and the fluctuations of politics, that which is effentially conducive to the interefts of the Company? The Earl of Carlifle begged to remark, before he quitted the oath, that the conclufion of it deferved a comment. It was a remarkable conclufion: "I do hereby acknowledge my felf to be wholly "and folely refponfible for the fame, and the confequences "thereof to my Country." Here lay the pathos, beautifully intended, no doubt; and in that light muft it have appeared, but for the terminating line," and to the faid United Com"pany." This line fo effectually conftrued the ideas of the perfon who fwore fo, to imagine that the United Company, trading from England to India, was greater, and by far tuperior to all the confequence of Great Britain. The words were thefe, and he begged to repeat them: "to my country, "and the faid United Company." He repeated them, becaufe there certainly was a diftinétion meant, and that diftinction, in his opinion, conveyed, that the United Company of Merchants trading to India, although they were refident in, and made part of, this country, yet were confidered as a difjunctive part, in the fpirit of the oath. Something great was expected after the words, "my country;" but that greatnefs terminating in the India Company, he fhould quit the fubject. The Duke of Manchester, in an obfervation upon the re- The Duke fponfibility of parties, faid, that the courts of juftice below of Manhad it not in their power to punith India delinquents. cheller. Vifcount Stormont anfwered, that the indictment in the Viscount affair of Lord Pigott, Mr. Stratton, and others, was for a Stormont. mifdemeanor, and that the court was not precluded from The Earl of The Earl of Abingdon, concluding the debate, said, Abingdon. "I do not rife to enter into the difcuffion of Indian politics, their remotenefs from hence has pretty well kept them out of the reach of my inquiry, and their complection has not (hitherto at leaft) been of that caft as to make them either the with of curiofity, or the object of improvement to me; and when I have faid this, I have perhaps offered two of the best reafons that can be given in fupport of a bill that means by its provifions not to govern India in England, but to remove thofe politics from the fountain head of government, and to confine their exercife as much as may be to the fpot of their exiftence, and to the channel in which they have been accustomed to flow: but, my Lords, meaning to give my affent to this bill, I rife merely to ftate, and within the compafs of a very few words, my reafons for doing so. "It has been objected both within and without doors, and from the mouths of fame not long fince trained, at least not bred, in the fchool of fuch objections, that the powers intended to be vefted in the Governor General, were abfolute, were arbitrary, were depotic, were founded on a fyftem of Tory principles, were defiructive of the rights of the people, and sb verfive of the conftitation of the country. "Now, my Lords, if this were fo, I hope and truft your Lordships would believe that I fhould be as anxious in my oppofition, as I am now forward in my fupport. And yet, I will be free to fay, that if thefe were even, in fact, the features of this bill, and it was confidered, by my oppofition to it, that I was to adopt the other fyftem that has been propofed for the government of India, and thereby to class myfelf among the number of its adherents, I would not he fitate a moment in my determination; but, of two evils, choofing the leaft, my oppofition would as inftantly be turned to fupport. For, my Lords, what was the other fyftem? A vitem certainly not founded on Tory principles, but on what was faid to be the principles of Whiggifm. Од On principles fetting up not only a new power in the conftitution, but a new form of government in the state. On principles of wrefting the executive power out of the hands of Majefty, and placing its difpenfations in the hands of his fubjects; in the hands of a chofen few, of an oligargichal band; under the circumftances of Eaftern patronage, converted into English influence, that foon, very foon, would have left the conflitution neither King nor Bishops, Lords, Commons, nor people, but as the whole was to be made fubfervient to the ambitious views of the few. If this then be Whiggifin, let me disclaim that odious appellation from myfelf. If it be Whiggifm to have feven tyrants for the government of this country, and Toryifm one, let me not be a Whig but a Tory; for, my Lords, is tyranny lefs or more tyrannical for being vefted in the hands of many or of one? The question is an answer to itfelf; and therefore comparing thefe two bills together, even under the defcription that has been given of the one now before your Lordships, 1 fhould not hesitate, as I have said, in the choice that I was to make. But, my Lords, when I confider how totally groundless the imputations that have been caft upon this bill are, when I fee (for those who run may read) that they are nothing more than the Tallios of a Fox chace, and the cry of the pack to run down a Minifter, the approbation and fanction which I am led to give this bill is, nor can be, but in proportion to the pleasure and fatisfaction that I have in doing fo." The queftion was then put, that the bill be committed, which paffed in the affirmative without a divifion, and the Houfe adjourned. Monday, 3d April. The order of the day having been read, the House refolved itself into a Committee of the whole Houfe, Lord Scarfdale in the Chair, and the Clerk read the preamble of the amended Eaft-India Bill. Lord Loughborough remarked, that he should efteem it as a 1d.Loughfavour, if any noble Peer, on the fide of Adminiftration, borough. would pleafe to inform him, whether, as the preamble of this bill was coupled with a subsequent claufe, it would not be better to confider the two jointly; and when both had been read and debated, that the queftion fhould then be put on each. The introductory part, which in other bills was called a preamble, was, in this, a claufe reciting a claufe, and followed by a fubfequent enacting claufe, to which, as he had already obferved, it was related. At any rate, he thought it would be the fafeft way to poftpone it until the bill thould have been read. He did not mean to give any oppofition by |