have been imposed upon, must have been deceived; for it was not to be supposed that they would tamely yield up in 1784 what they had successfully defended in 1783. Yet this was the first act of a political character of unspotted purity; a person unpractised in deceit, unhacknied in the ways of men! Political virtues were like other virtues, progressive in their nature. If such had been the first opening of the bud, the first flower of the blossom, what might not be expected from the maturity of the golden harvest! Where were now the arguments that had been opposed to the author of the former Bill? On what grounds did the promoters of the present system come forward to demand for themselves those very powers which they had imputed to him as a crime to ask? Was it because they dreaded his manly and transcendent abilities, because he stood in the way of their own ambition, and must be removed at any rate? He wished this Bill, as it was now explained, to go abroad into the world, and to be fully understood by those who had been so much alarmed and so much offended by the other. The public might be misled for a moment, but there was in an Eng lish public a fund of good sense, that when left to itself would detect the imposition, and resent it when detected. And although he did not think that popular opinion ought ever to influence their lordships in deciding on any measure, yet before the tribunal of the public at large must the decision of every public body come, and its propriety or impropriety be ulti mately appreciated. He agreed with the marquis of Landsdowne in many of the objections he had made to the Bill, and said he had given it à wound which it would never recover.

Earl Camden said, that he wished to speak thus early, from a fear that his health would not enable him to deliver his sentiments if he staid out the whole of the debate. He had been in Ireland in the session of 1784, when the 24th of the present King passed; to all the anecdotes, little tales, and secret histories of what had been either intended, or was actually said or done, either in the House of Commons or in that House, upon the subject, at the time, he was, therefore, necessarily an entire stranger, and of course could not, if he were so inclined, mix any such allusions with what he had to say to their lordships on the occasion. He wished to call their attention to the dry question of

construction, merely to the exposition of the statute of 1784. A learned lord had, on the preceding Monday, laid it down as the fit rule of construction of an Act of Parliament, that the spirit and general purview of the Act, and the meaning of its particular clauses, must be looked to; and it was to this rule of construction that he was ready to subscribe, and to admit that it was the true and only rule of exposition of Acts of Parliament. That rule he meant to follow in considering the Act of 1784, which he had read again and again, and he would argue from it closely, having no doubt but that he should be able to prove, beyond all contradiction, that the Declaratory Bill gave the true exposition of the Act of 1784, and that it could not have been intended to have been otherwise understood.-He began with calling the attention of the House to the 6th section of the Bill, in which it is enacted," that the Board of Control shall be fully authorized and empowered, from time to time, to superintend, direct, and control all acts, operations and concerns, which in any wise relate to the civil or military government or revenues of the British territorial possessions in the East Indies." He wished their lordships always to keep in mind the word "direct" he was aware that the clause ended with the words, "in the manner herein after described;" that he meant to go into afterwards, but for a moment let those words be forgotten and put out of the question, as if they made no part of the clause. Had that been the case, there could not have existed a doubt of the intention of the Act, because it would have been impossible for the Board to be able to exercise the authority and power to direct all acts, &c. without having, at the same time, the power of originating orders and dispatches whenever they thought it their duty so to do. With regard to the words "in the manner herein after directed," a reference to the subsequent clauses clearly proved, that the Board were in the particular cases stated and described in those clauses, directed how to act, but that did not take from them the general power of superintendance, direction, and control in all cases not specified. He spoke of the 11th clause as illustrative of this part of his argument, and having commented upon it, took notice of the 13th, in which the word" revenues" is omitted, and civil or military government are the terms only used. That might, he observed, be an

Superintendance, Direction, and Control, to guard against the dangers of any mismanagement. That Board being once appointed, was it consistent with reason and good sense, that it should be so ill instituted, and armed with such inefficient powers, that if the Directors chose to sit with their arms across, doing nothing, the Board could not of themselves act, where they saw it was actually necessary to send out orders and dispatches? The very nature of the case proved the contrary. There must be a paramount power, a power to direct, lodged somewhere. If that power was not vested, by the Act of 1784, in the Board of Control, he begged to be informed where it was vested? The Board of Commissioners, it would perhaps be suggested, might abuse their power. In like manner, the Governor-general and Council of Bengal, the Governor and Council of the Presidency of Fort St. George, and the Governor and Council of the Presidency of Bombay, all of whom were invested with large and extensive powers in their respective districts, might abuse their powers. Let it be remembered that they were all charged with responsibility, and were amenable to the laws of their country for their conduct. Let it also be remembered, that it was indispensably necessary that there should exist some sovereign authority over the Company's affairs in England, and in what hands could it more safely or more expediently be placed, than in the hands of a Board of Commissioners, all of them members of Parliament appointed by the Crown, and headed by two of his Majesty's principal ministers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary of State for the southern department? Upon a fair consideration, therefore, of the spirit and general purview of the Act of 1784 and of its clauses, it apppeared to him demonstrably clear, that the present Declaratory Bill did contain a sound and just exposition of that statute.-Much had been said on the nature of declaratory bills, on their infrequency, and on their danger. Two declaratory bills had been alluded to, but neither of them much in point; in the progress of his researches, he had met with another, a declaratory bill that came more immediately in parallel with the Bill then under consideration. In the reign of queen Anne, an Act had passed for the naturalization of all the children of British parents, such children being born abroad. That Act remained in force fourteen [R]

accidental omission; but coupling that clause with the 11th, and taking the general purview of the Bill into consideration, it was impossible to conceive that the Board were not equally vested with a power to originate dispatches in regard to the application of the revenues of the territorial possessions in the East Indies, as in regard to the civil or military government of those possessions. There was a clause in the Act, which had been mentioned by a learned lord, on Monday, and which he admitted, did appear to contradict the argument that he had been maintaining; and that was the 29th clause, in which it was enacted, "that no order or resolution of any general court of the proprietors shall be available to revoke or rescind any act, order, or resolution of the Court of Directors, after the same shall have been approved by the said Board." How that clause came into the Bill, or how it was suffered to remain a part of it, was to him a matter of astonishment, because if that clause was insisted upon, it in effect annulled all the active powers of the Board, and rendered the institution perfectly nugatory. That being obviously the effect of the 29th clause, it must have been through some strange negligence that it was suffered to stand in the Bill, and it ought not to be considered as having any operation whatever. His lordship reasoned upon this point, and said, so far was he from doubting that the Board of Control had a right to apply the revenues of the British territorial possessions in India, to their protection, security and defence, he held it to be their first duty, and if they were to sacrifice that important object to the purchase of an investment, or any commercial concern whatever, they would be guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor, and deserve impeachment. He was apt to suspect that there was some blame imputable to the Court of Directors, or the House would not have heard of any difference between them and the Board of Control, because nothing could be more clear, than that if the Directors did their duty, there could arise no dispute about the government of India. He expatiated on this idea, and appealed to the understandings and recollection of every man who heard him, whether the negligence or the want of capacity of the East-India Company and their Court of Directors to govern India, had not made it necessary for the legisJature to interfere and appoint a Board of [VOL. XXVII.]

years, and then, in the 4th of Geo. 2, a declaratory bill was brought in to explain the Act of queen Anne, and to declare that the intention and meaning of that statute was not to extend to the children of British parents under attainder for high treason. His lordship said, he would not enter into any discussion of the ground and principle of the declaratory act to which he alluded; it was sufficient for him to state the fact, and to observe, that enacting clauses made a part of that Bill as well as of the present. There was an opposition at the time, but he could not find that there had been any debate upon the Bill; what he had mentioned, however, would serve to show, that declaratory bills had passed without alarm to the friends of the constitution, and without objection, although framed like the Declaratory Bill then before their lordships. Though in office himself, he declared he honoured an opposition; and he had no scruple to say, that he thought an opposition of great service to the country, when conducted on public principles. An opposition awed ministers, and kept them vigilant. It checked their career, put them upon their guard, taught them where error lay, and how to correct it. But he could not reasonably account for the conduct of the present opposition. A great part of their object in the debates in both Houses seemed to have been, to make it appear that the India Bill of 1784 was of equal extent, with respect to violence and assumption of power, with that of 1783. If he seriously thought the Bill of 1784 balf as bad as that of 1783, he would not only oppose the present Declaratory Bill, but resign his place the next day. Both Bills undoubtedly broke in upon the chartered rights of the Company. A

6

cry of Hear, hear!]-The fact was so, and he defied any man to say, who should cast the first stone, if a question was made of who had been the foremost to trench upon the Company's charter? It was done by the Bill of 1773, and by the Bill of 1781, and it was clearly done by each of the two Bills now talked of as comparative, the Bills of 1783 and 1784. In fact, no reform of the abuses and mal-administration of the Company's affairs in India, admitted on all hands to have existed, could have been effected, without a violation, or as he understood it was now termed, a suspension of the powers of the Court of Directors. The Bill of 1783 took from the Company every particle of power and pa

tronage at home and in India; it aimed not only at divesting the Directors of their power in the civil and military departments, but in their commercial. The preamble bogan in an extraordinary style. It stated that disorders of an alarming nature had long prevailed, and did still continue, in the management of the territorial possessions, revenues, and commerce of this kingdom in the East Indies." This was surely an extravagant turn of expression. Who before ever heard of a commercial company having been guilty of enormous disorders in the conduct of their commerce being made a plea for seizing upon all their property, power, and patronage, when all were either secured to them by charter, or sanctioned by statute? The Bill of 1783, however, aimed at seizing all the Company's warehouses, arsenals, ships, forts, money, bonds, and, in short, every thing they possessed, as well in India as in Europe. Were noble lords aware of the value of such a seizure, and the patronage it gave in the first instance at home. Did they know, that the buildings in Leadenhall-street, and the various warehouses in London and its environs, were estimated at 700,000l.? That the sums annually paid to tradesmen in London for goods to be exported, amounted to 700,000l. likewise; and that the freightage to India, and other expenses, made up the whole a million and a half, and more? What an enormous influence would not, or rather must not, have followed from this patronage? All appointments at home and in Asia would necessarily have been subject to the commissioners will. The Court of Directors, like so many clerks, would have come bowing to the levee of the author of the Bill, and surrendered the keys of their house in Leadenhall-street, and all the warehouses of the Company, with the most abject humility. Every tradesman, employed by the Directors would have felt the influence. Sail-makers, and those of the very lowest order of mechanics, might have been turned out of employment without knowing the reason. It was worthy of consi deration also of whom the Board appointed by the Bill of 1783 were to be composed; of a party! and when he mentioned a party, he declared he meant no reflection. He had himself been of a party for some years, and had it so chanced that he had joined with the present opposition, he should have considered himself as honoured by his company and con