the last session of parliament. He begged that the House would look to the debt of two million and a half, due to the Bombay presidency, which at present was not put into any mode of payment, and the bonds in consequence were so reduced, that they sold at 60%. per cent. discount; districts indeed had been given as security, but those districts, by the hand of power, were taken away, and the claim of a number of suspicious private creditors were referred to the public debt, against which there was not any proof whatsoever, nor even the smallest idea of fraud. This surely was a most serious object of inquiry, and it was a matter which he wished the whole court of directors to hear. The chairman, he observed, was behind him, and it made him happy to find him there, because he could give his opinion whether he thought this new board of control had acted with fidelity or not, to that trust which the House had so confidentially committed to their care. Matters of accounts could not be made too public; and this was an aphorism well known to the House. There were two purposes to which his motion tended, and he wished the House to consider them well-The crimination of the board of control, or an amendment of the act of parliament. He then moved, "That the proper officer do lay before this House, copies or extracts of all letters and orders of the court of directors of the United East India Company in pursuance of the injunctions contained in the 37th and 38th clauses of the Act passed in the last session of parliament, for the better regulation and management of the affairs of the East India Company, and of the British possessions in India, and for establishing a court of judicature for the more speedy and effectual trial of persons accused of offences committed in the East Indies."

Mr. Francis said, he rose to second the motion. The first object that presented itself in this business was not the transaction itself, nor the merits of the disputes between the directors and the commissioners, as the distribution of power, which was the source of the dispute, laid the foundation of others without end. He reminded the House, that he had foretold the consequence of dividing the power of the Company between two boards, but said, it did not require any extraordinary talent at prediction, to foretell the consequences of such an institution. The common effect of clashing powers were oppo

sition and counteraction; thus they saw as soon as the directors had begun to act, the commissioners counteracted; and action on the part of the directors produced counteraction on that of the commissioners; the consequence was, orders had been at last sent to India, signed with the names of twenty-four men, whose sentiments were known to be directly the reverse. What could such a circumstance produce but contempt and disobedience abroad? What Mr. Fox had slightly touched upon, Mr. Francis said, he considered as of very great importance, and that was the matter of fact that the two points in question were specially and exclusively referred to the court of directors by the 37th and 38th clauses of the Act. They were, he observed, questions of right and property, not matters of revenue, or civil or military government. The commissioners had no jurisdiction over them, neither concurrent nor appellant, but had assumed a power against law, which they had exercised against justice. Admitting, however, that an appeal would have lain, no appellant jurisdiction could act, until an appeal was made to them from one of the parties. Whereas the commissioners have acted as if the original juristiction was in them, and as if the court of directors had none at all. With regard to the debt of 1767, he would pass that by, and confine himself to the cavalry lóan, and to the debt of 1777; these debts were, he said, at least of a questionable nature. Parliament, the court of directors, and the commissioners, were all agreed in saying, that they were so; yet they have been all passed without any question at all; in other words, a very questionable debt of near two millions and a half had been ordered to be paid with as much facility and indifference as if it were a perfect trifle. Indeed, the debt was much worse than questionable; it was suspicious and fraudulent, and it had been repeatedly stamped with the worst interpretations. The commissioners of control themselves, in their letter to the directors, of the 15th of October last, say, "The debts of 1777 do not certainly stand in the same light. They were contracted without any authority from the Company; were consolidated in no respect under their sanction, and have never been recognized by them." The directors, in their letter of April 17, 1778, say, "It is our express command that you immediately and utterly disavow, on the part of the Company, all and every

security which may have been given to Messrs. Taylor, &c. The loan, if actually made, was a direct breach of our orders." Sir Thomas Rumbold, in his letter to the directors, dated Fort St. George, March 15, 1778, speaking of the cavalry loan, says, "Whether it was applied to so good a purpose or not, I cannot say. How shall I paint to you my astonishment when I was informed, that, independent of these four lacks of pagodas, independent of the nabob's debt to his old creditors, and the money due to the Company, he had contracted a debt to the enormous amount of 63 lacks of pagodas! I mention this circumstance to you with horror. It is, in my mind, the most venal of all proceedings, to give the Company's protection to debts that cannot bear the light." The nabob also, in his letter to sir T. Rumbold, dated the 24th of March, 1779, had these words: Two years are nearly expired since that time, but Mr. Taylor has not yet entirely discharged the arrears of those troops, and I am obliged to continue their pay from that time till this."-Exclusive of these comments on the cavalry loan, and that of 1777, Mr. Francis observed, that Mr. Hastings had ordered 25 per cent. to be cut off from the transferrable debts, and no interest to be paid on the principal. The authority of Mr. Hastings was of great weight in the scale against the creditors, since it was not likely that he would offend them if the case were not gross and flagrant. It had not been his policy to offend individuals for the sake of the public. But parliament, it was plain, supposed an inquiry into the debts of the nabob necessary, and accordingly they ordered the court of directors to take into their consideration the origin and justice of the said demands. On the principles there laid down by parliament, the directors had proceeded and given proper orders. The commissioners opposed their opinions, not only to the directors, but to the authority of parliament itself, and had ordered the whole of the debts, the doubtful and fraudulent, as well as the good debts, to be peremptorily paid without inquiry. This was an assumption of discretional power, that they were not legally invested with, and if they had been so, they would have made a wrong use of it. Here Mr. Francis introduced several short remarks on the nature of such a stretch of authority; he ascribed it to ostentation and want of modesty, observing "quædam causæ modestiam desiderant." He also fairly told

the other side of the House, that their personal characters were more endangered than they perhaps imagined, for that rumours were abroad, that there was a collusion between the board of control and the creditors of the nabob. He said a few words on the bad consequence of affording cause for the circulation of any such rumours, and at length he returned to the consideration of the Act of the last session, which he said he considered as the source of the matter of complaint made the subject of the debate. His principal objection to the Act, he stated to be, that it introduced new principles into the law and constitution of England. That, for the trial of offences committed in India, a high commission court was established, without the intervention of a jury; and now, another principle, foreign to the spirit of the English laws and jurisprudence, that a tribunal may exist (for the trial of a mere question of property between party and party, a mere matter of debt and credit,) in which the trial shall proceed, and the award be given, januis clausis. He added, that principles and innovations such as these, should have been resisted at their outset, and not suffered to gain ground; that he would not give such principles a point to stand on, lest, having once gained a footing, they might gradually gather strength, and on that footing, and with that strength, might sooner or later shake our whole political establishment to the ground.

Mr. Dundas said, that standing in the particular situation in which he had the honour to stand, the House, hé presumed, would naturally expect to hear something from him. The right hon. gentleman had stated, that he moved for the papers in question with a direct view to crimination; such a view, he was ready to admit, was a very good parliamentary ground for any motion of the kind; but when he admitted thus much, he must also observe, that it was incumbent on the right hon. gentleman to show, in a manner satisfactory to the House, that there was a cause for crimination, and to state the facts that led him to form that judgment, so as to induce the House to go along with him in opinion, and to order the papers now called for. The House had heard the right hon. gentleman's argument, and they had observed on what assertions he rested his charge. He would endeavour to go through the principal of those assertions, and as he proceeded he would accompany them with

observations tending either to refute or to explain every one of them. When he should have concluded what he had to say, the House would be in possession both of the charge and the reply to that charge; and it would then be in their power to decide how far the charge was founded, and how far the board of control was criminal or not. He begged, therefore, to be understood as rising to ask no favour of any man; he desired to be watched with an eye of jealousy; he knew he spoke in the hearing of some who might be prejudiced; he expected little candour from many, but he had a right to demand justice from all. When the Act was in agitation last year, Mr. Dundas reminded the House, the board of control had been complained of as an institution at once frivolous and feeble, nugatory and useless. It had been abused in the grossest manner, and, among other things, it had been said, that the commissioners would be wholly subservient to the court of directors; that they would act under them, and be, as it were, a shield to their ill conduct and their criminality. As the language held that day had been of a very different complexion, and as the board had been abused, not for subserviency to the court of directors, but for holding a conduct directly the reverse, he hoped they should not again hear any attacks urged on the same ground as had formerly been taken. Though the ground of attack, however, had been changed, the severity of the abuse was not slackened: last year the board was accused with being likely to take the part of the court of directors, and screen them in their concealment of delinquents; but now the accusation was extended all the length of India, and the right hon. gentleman had thought proper to impute to the board of control a direct design to encourage and promote peculation and corruption in the Company's servants abroad. How far they had acted in a manner liable to any such imputation, it would be for the House to judge, after they should have heard the motives that induced them to adopt the line of conduct that they had adopted.

Mr. Dundas proceeded to examine and to controvert the different positions laid down by Mr. Fox. In referring to the several bills that had been brought in on the subject of establishing a new system of government for India, the right hon. gentleman, he said, had truly stated, that in every one of them the same desire to liquidate the debts of the nabob of Arcot

of

The

| was manifested, though not in each the three Bills precisely in the same terms; but, in quoting the Bills, the right hon. gentleman had shewn that he possessed, to use an expression of his own, a memory more convenient than correct. Mr. Dundas here read a clause from his own Bill in justification of this assertion. He next reasoned upon the words of the 37th clause of the Act of the last year, in proof that the board had not exceeded its powers, but had acted strictly within the meaning of the statute. He said, the court of directors were commanded to take into their consideration the origin and justice of the demands upon the nabob of Arcot, as far as the materials they are in possession of shall enable them so to do. The clear construction of which was, that they were to proceed forthwith to consider such demands as the materials in their possession enabled them to consider. This they had done, and no more. letters and correspondence in the Company's books at the India-house, and a variety of other data, afforded as full information upon the subject of the debt of 1767, of the cavalry debt, and of the consolidated debt of 1777, as the court of directors could expect to receive; and the arrangement that the board of control had ordered, was that which appeared to them to be the arrangement of all others the most fair and just to all the parties. With regard to the invalidity of the different debts, he would enter into some discussion. The debt of 1767 was incurred by this means; the nabob being in debt to the Company, and in the greatest distress, publicly advertised to borrow money at a high interest; the consequence was, a considerable deal of money was lent him, some at 30, 35, and 36 per cent. interest, and by way of security, the nabob gave the lenders assignments upon his territorial revenues; it appearing afterwards that the lenders were chiefly British subjects, an order was sent out by the court of directors to lower all the interest to 10 per cent. This was, at the time, greatly complained of by some of the nabob's creditors, stating, that they themselves had borrowed the money they lent to the nabob at a much higher interest than 10 per cent. The order, however, was put in force. The whole of the money raised by this loan of 1767, was paid immediately into the Company's treasury, and the loan at the time recognised and admitted by the Company. There could, therefore, be no