mittee's observations on the last division extend to those matters only, which are not comprehended in the Report of the Committee of Secrecy. Under these heads, your committee refer to the most leading particulars of abuse, which prevail in the administration of India; deviating only from this order, where the abuses are of a complicated nature, and where one cannot be well considered independently of several others.

second attempt made for a reforma

by parliament

tion.

Your committee observe, that this is the second attempt made by parliament for the reformation of abuses in the Company's government. It appears therefore to them a necessary preliminary to this second undertaking, to consider the causes, which, in their opinion, have produced the failure of the first; that the defects of the original plan may be supplied; its errors corrected; and such useful regulations, as were then adopted, may be further explained, enlarged, and enforced.

Proceedings of

The first design of this kind was formed in the session of the year 1773. In that year, parlia- session 1773. ment, taking up the consideration of the affairs

of India, through two of its committees, collected a very great body of details concerning the interior economy of the Company's possessions; and concerning many particulars of abuse, which prevailed at the time when those committees made their ample and instructive reports. But it does not appear, that the body of regulations enacted in that year, that is, in the East-India act of the thirteenth of his Majesty's reign, were altogether grounded on that information; but were adopted rather on probable speculations, and general ideas of good policy and good government. New establishments, civil and judicial, were therefore formed at a very great expense, and with much complexity of constitution. Checks and counter-checks of all kinds were contrived in the execution, as well as in the formation, of this system, ir which all the existing authorities of this kingdom had a share for parliament appointed the members of the presiding part of the new establishment; the crown appointed the judicial; and the Company preserved the nomination of the other officers. So that if the act has not fully answered its purposes, the failure cannot be attributed to any want of officers of every description, or to the deficiency of any mode

:

of patronage in their appointment. The cause must be sought elsewhere.

Powers and objects of act of 1773, and the effects thereof.

The act had in its view (independently of several detached regulations) five fundamental objects:

1st, The reformation of the court of proprie

tors of the East India Company :

2dly, A new model of the court of directors, and an enforcement of their authority over the servants abroad:

3dly, The establishment of a court of justice capable of protecting the natives from the oppressions of British subjects:

4thly, The establishment of a general council to be seated in Bengal, whose authority should, in many particulars, extend over all the British settlements in India:

5thly, To furnish the ministers of the crown with constant information concerning the whole of the Company's correspondence with India, in order that they might be enabled to inspect the conduct of the directors and servants, and to watch over the execution of all parts of the act; that they might be furnished with matter to lay before parliament from time to time, according as the state of things should render regulation or animadversion necessary.

Court of pro

The first object of the policy of this act was prietors. to improve the constitution of the court of proprietors. In this case, as in almost all the rest, the remedy was not applied directly to the disease. The complaint was, that factions in the court of proprietors had shown, in several instances, a disposition to support the servants of the Company against the just coercion and legal prosecution of the directors. Instead of applying a corrective to the distemper, a change was proposed in the constitution. By this reform, it was presumed, that an interest would arise in the general court more independent in itself, and more connected with the commercial prosperity of the Company. Under the new constitution, no procation. prietor, not possessed of a thousand pounds capital stock, was permitted to vote in the general court: before the act, five hundred pounds was a sufficient qualification for one vote; and no value gave more. But as the lower classes were disabled, the power was in

New qualifi

creased in the higher: proprietors of three thousand pounds were allowed two votes; those of six thousand were entitled to three; ten thousand pounds was made the qualification for four. The votes were thus regulated in the scale and gradation of property. On this scale, and on some provisions to prevent occasional qualifications, and splitting of votes, the whole reformation rested,

Several essential points, however, seem to have been omitted or misunderstood. No regulation was made to abolish the pernicious custom of voting by ballot; by The ballot. means of which, acts of the highest concern to

Indian interest.

the Company, and to the state, might be done by individuals with perfect impunity: and even the body itself might be subjected to a forefeiture of all its privileges for defaults of persons, who, so far from being under control, could not be so much as known in any mode of legal cognizance. Nothing was done, or attempted, to prevent the operation of the interest of delinquent servants of the Company, in the general court, by which they might even come to be their own judges; and in effect, under another description, to become the masters in that body, which ought to govern them. Nor was anything provided to secure the independency of the proprietory body from the various exterior interests, by which it might be disturbed, and diverted from the conservation of that pecuniary concern, which the act laid down as the sole security for preventing a collusion between the general court and the powerful delinquent servants in India. The whole of the regulations concerning the court of proprietors relied upon two principles, which have often proved fallacious; namely, that small numbers were a security against faction and disorder; and, that integrity of conduct would follow the greater property. In no case could these principles be less depended upon than in the affairs of the East-India Company. However, by wholly cutting off the lower, and adding to the power of the higher, classes, it was supposed, that the higher would keep their money in that fund to make profit; that the vote would be a secondary consideration, and no more than a guard to the property; and that therefore any abuse, which tended to depreciate the value of their stock, would be warmly resented by such proprietors.

If the ill effects of every misdemeanour in the Company's service were to be immediate, and had a tendency to lower the value of the stock, something might justly be expected from the pecuniary security taken by the act. But from the then state of things, it was more than probable, that proceedings, ruinous to the permanent interest of the Company, might commence in great lucrative advantages. Against this evil large pecuniary interests were rather the reverse of a remedy. Accordingly the Company's servants have ever since covered over the worst oppressions of the people under their government, and the most cruel and wanton ravages of all the neighbouring countries, by holding out, and for a time actually realizing, additions of revenue to the territorial funds of the Company, and great quantities of valuable goods to their investment.

But this consideration of mere income (whatProprietors. ever weight it might have) could not be the first object of a proprietor, in a body so circumstanced. The East-India Company is not like the Bank of England, a mere monied society for the sole purpose of the preservation or improvement of their capital: and therefore, every attempt to regulate it upon the same principles must inevitably fail. When it is considered, that a certain share in the stock gives a share in the government of so vast an empire, with such a boundless patronage, civil, military, marine, commercial, and financial, in every department of which such fortunes have been made, as could be made nowhere else, it is impossible not to perceive, that capitals, far superior to any qualifications appointed to proprietors, or even to directors, would readily be laid out for a participation in that power. The India proprietor, therefore, will always be, in the first instance, a politician; and the bolder his enterprise, and the more corrupt his views, the less will be his consideration of the price to be paid for compassing them. The new regulations did not reduce the number so low as not to Leave the assembly still liable to all the disorder, which might be supposed to arise from multitude. But, if the principle had been well established, and well executed, a much greater inconveniency grew out of the reform than that which had attended the old abuse; for if tumult and disorder be lessened by reducing the number of proprietors,

private cabal and intrigue are facilitated, at least, in an equal degree; and it is cabal and corruption, rather than disorder and confusion, that were most to be dreaded in transacting the affairs of India. Whilst the votes of the smaller proprietors continued, a door was left open for the public sense to enter into that society: since that door has been closed, the proprietory has become (even more than formerly) an aggregate of private interests, which subsist at the expense of the collective body. At the moment of this revolution in the proprietory, as it might naturally be expected, those, who had either no very particular interest in their vote, or but a petty object to pursue, immediately disqualified; but those, who were deeply interested in the Company's patronage; those, who were concerned in the supply of ships, and of the other innumerable objects, required for their immense establishments; those, who were engaged in contracts with the treasury, admiralty, and ordnance, together with the clerks in public offices, found means of securing qualifications at the enlarged standard. All these composed a much greater proportion than formerly they had done of the proprietory body.

Against the great, predominant, radical corruption of the court of proprietors, the raising the qualification proved no sort of remedy. The return of the Company's servants into Europe poured in a constant supply of proprietors, whose ability to purchase the highest qualifications for themselves, their agents, and dependents, could not be dubious. And this latter description form a very considerable, and by far the most active and efficient, part of that body. To add to the votes, which is adding to the power, in proportion to the wealth, of men, whose very offences were supposed to consist in acts, which lead to the acquisition of enormous riches, appears by no means a well-considered method of checking rapacity and oppression. In proportion as these interests prevailed, the means of cabal, of concealment, and of corrupt confederacy, became far more easy than before. Accordingly, there was no fault with respect to the Company's government over its servants, charged or chargeable on the general court as it originally stood, of which, since the reform, it has not been notoriously guilty. It was not, therefore, a matter of surprise to your committee, that the general