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what similar to that which had prevailed before; but the number was smaller. This establishment was composed of a governour-general, and four counsellors, all named in the act of parliament.

which term the patronage was to revert to the court of directors. In the mean time such vacancies as should happen were to be filled by that court, with the concurrence of the Crown. The first governour-general and one of the counsellors had been old servants to the company, the others

were new men.

On this new arrangement, the courts of proprietors and directors considered the details of commerce as not perfectly consistent with the enlarged sphere of duty, and the reduced number of the council. Therefore, to relieve them from this burthen, they instituted a new office, called the Board of Trade, for the subordinate management of their commercial concerns; and appointed eleven of their senior servants to fill the commission.

This court, which in its constitution seems not to have had sufficiently in view the necessities of the people, for whose relief it was intended, and was, or thought itself, bound, in some instances, to too strict an adherence to the forms and rules of Eng-They were to hold their offices for five years; after lish practice, in others was framed upon principles, perhaps, too remote from the constitution of English tribunals. By the usual course of English practice, the far greater part of the redress to be obtained against oppressions of power is by process in the nature of civil actions. In these a trial by jury is a necessary part, with 'regard to the finding the offence, and to the assessment of the damages. Both these were, in the charter of justice, left entirely to the judges. It was presumed, and not wholly without reason, that the British subjects were liable to fall into factions and combinations, in order to support themselves in the abuses of an authority, of which every man might, in his turn, become a sharer. And with regard to the natives, it was presumed, (perhaps a little too hastily,) that they were not capable of sharing in the functions of jurors. But it was not foreseen, that the judges were also liable to be engaged in the factions of the settlement: and if they should ever happen to be so engaged, that the native people were then without that remedy, which obviously lay in the clause, that the court and jury, though both liable to bias, might not easily unite in the same identical act of injustice. Your committee, on full enquiry, are of opinion, that the use of juries is neither impracticable nor dangerous in Bengal.

Your committee refer to their report, made in the year 1781, for the manner in which, this court attempting to extend its jurisdiction, and falling with extreme severity on the native magistrates, a violent contest arose between the English judges and the English civil authority. This authority calling in the military arm (by a most dangerous example) overpowered, and for a while suspended, the functions of that court; but at length those functions, which were suspended by the quarrel of the parties, were destroyed by their reconciliation, and by the arrangements made in consequence of it. By these the court was virtually annihilated; or, if substantially it exists, it is to be apprehended, it exists only for purposes very different from those of its institution.

vernour-gene

The powers given by the act to the Object of new governour-general and council powers to gohad for their direct object the king- ral and coundom of Bengal and its dependencies. cil. Within that sphere (and it is not a small one) their authority extended all over the company's concerns, of whatever description. In matters of peace and war it seems to have been meant, that the other presidencies should be subordinate to their board. But the law is loose and defective where it professes to restrain the subordinate presidencies from making war without the consent and approbation of the supreme council. They are left free to act without it in cases of imminent necessity, or, where they shall have received special orders from the company. The first exception leaves it open to the subordinate to judge of the necessity of measures, which, when taken, bind or involve the superiour: the second refers a question of peace or war to two jurisdictions, which may give different judgments. In both instances cases in point have occurred. With regard to their local administration, their powers were exceedingly and dangerously loose and undetermined. Their powers were not given directly, but in words of reference, in which neither the objects related to, nor the mode of the relation, were sufficiently expressed. Their legislative and executive capacities were not so accurately drawn, and marked by such strong and penal lines of distinction, as to keep these capacities separate. Where legislative, and merely executive, powers were lodged in the same hands, the legislative, which is the larger, and the more ready for all occasions, was constantly resorted to. The governour-general and council therefore immediately gave constructions to their ill-defined authority, which rendered it perfectly despotick; constructions, which if they were allowed, no action of theirs ought to be regarded as criminal.

The fourth object of the act of 1773 was the council general. This institution was intended to produce uniformity, consistency, and the effective co-operation of all the settlements in their common defence. By the ancient constitution of the company's foreign settlements they were each of them under the orders of a president, or chief, and a council, more or fewer, according to the discretion of the company; among those, parliament (probably on account of the largeness of the territorial acquisitions, rather than the conveniency of the situation) chose Bengal, for the residence of the controuling power; and, dissolving the presidency, Armed as they were with an authority in itself appointed a new establishment upon a plan some- so ample, and by abuse so capable of an unlimited

* See the secret committee's reports on the Mahratta war.

extent, very few, and these very insufficient, correctives were administered. Ample salaries were provided for them, which indeed removed the necessity, but by no means the inducements, to corruption and oppression. Nor was any barrier whatsoever opposed, on the part of the natives, against their injustice, except the supreme court of judicature, which never could be capable of controuling a government with such powers, without becoming such a government itself.

There was, indeed, a prohibition against all concerns in trade to the whole council, and against all taking of presents by any in authority. A right of prosecution in the King's Bench was also established; but it was a right, the exercise of which is difficult, and in many, and those the most weighty, cases impracticable. No considerable facilities were given to prosecutions in parliament; nothing was done to prevent complaint from being far more dangerous to the sufferer than injustice to the oppressor. No overt acts were fixed, upon which corruption should be presumed in transactions, of which secrecy and collusion formed the very basis; no rules of evidence, nor authentick mode of transmission, were settled in conformity to the unalterable circumstances of the country and the people.

Removal of One provision, indeed, was made servants. for restraining the servants, in itself very wise and substantial; a delinquent, once dismissed, could not be restored but by the votes of three fourths of the directors, and three fourths of the proprietors: this was well aimed. But no method was settled for bringing delinquents to the question of removal; and if they should be brought to it, a door lay wide open for evasion of the law, and for a return into the service, in defiance of its plain intention; that is, by resigning, to avoid removal; by which measure this provision of the act has proved as unoperative as all the rest. By this management, a mere majority may bring in the greater delinquent, whilst the person removed for offences comparatively trivial may remain excluded for ever.

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of power. Against the system of presents, therefore, the new commission was, in general opinion, particularly pointed. In the commencement of reformation, at a period, when a rapacious conquest had overpowered, and succeeded to a corrupt government, an act of indemnity might have been thought advisable; perhaps, a new account ought to have been opened; all retrospect ought to have been forbidden, at least to certain periods. If this had not been thought advisable, none in the higher departments of a suspected and decried government ought to have been kept in their posts, until an examination had rendered their proceedings. clear, or until length of time had obliterated, by an even course of irreproachable conduct, the errours, which so naturally grow out of a new power. But the policy adopted was different: it was to begin with examples. The cry against the abuses was strong and vehement throughout the whole nation, and the practice of presents was represented to be as general, as it was mischievous. In such a case, indeed in any case, it seemed not to be a measure the most provident, without a great deal of previous enquiry, to place two persons, who from their situation must be the most exposed to such imputations, in the commission, which was to enquire into their own conduct; much less to place one of them at the head of that commission, and with a casting vote in case of an equality. The persons, who could not be liable to that charge, were, indeed, three to two; but any accidental difference of opinion, the death of any one of them, or his occasional absence or sickness, threw the whole power into the hands of the other two, who were Mr. Hastings and Mr. Barwell, one the president, and the other high in the council of that establishment, on which the reform was to operate. Thus those, who were liable to process as delinquents, were in effect set over the reformers; and that did actually happen, which might be expected to happen from so preposterous an arrangement; a stop was soon put to all enquiries into the capital abuses.

presidencies have acted, in a great degree, upon their own separate authority; and as little of unity, concert, or regular system, has appeared in their conduct, as was ever known before this institution. India is, indeed, so vast a country, and the settle

Nor was the great political end proposed in the The new council nominated in the formation of a superintending council over all the ral. act was composed of two totally dis- presidencies better answered, than that of an encordant elements, which soon distinguished them-quiry into corruptions and abuses. The several selves into permanent parties. One of the principal instructions, which the three members of the council, sent immediately from England, namely, General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, carried out with them, was, to cause "the strictest enquiry to be made into all oppres-ments are so divided, that their intercourse with "sions and abuses," among which the practice of receiving presents from the natives, at that time generally charged upon men in power, was principally aimed at.

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each other is liable to as many delays and difficulties as the intercourse between distant and separate states. But one evil may possibly have arisen from an attempt to produce an union, which, though Presents to any considerable value were justly undoubtedly to be aimed at, is opposed in some reputed by the legislature, not as marks of atten-degree by the unalterable nature of their situation, tion and respect, but as bribes or extortions; for which either the beneficial and gratuitous duties of government were sold, or they were the price paid for acts of partiality; or, finally, they were sums money extorted from the givers by the terrours

of

that it has taught the servants rather to look to a superiour among themselves, than to their common superiours. This evil, growing out of the abuse of subordination, can only be corrected by a very strict enforcement of authority over that part of

the chain of dependence, which is next to the original power.

Powers given

ters of the

That which your committee conto the minis siders as the fifth and last of the Crown. capital objects of the act, and as the binding regulation of the whole, is the introduction (then for the first time) of the ministers of the Crown into the affairs of the company. The state claiming a concern and share of property in the company's profits, the servants of the Crown were presumed the more likely to preserve, with a scrupulous attention, the sources of the great revenues, which they were to administer, and for the rise and fall of which they were to render an account.

The interference of government was introduced by this act in two ways; one by a controul, in effect by a share, in the appointment to vacancies in the supreme council. The act provided, that His Majesty's approbation should be had to the persons named to that duty. Partaking thus in the patronage of the company, administration was bound to an attention to the characters and capacities of the persons employed in that high trust.

The other part of their interference was by way of inspection. By this right of inspection every thing in the company's correspondence from India, which related to the civil or military affairs, and government of the company, was directed by the act to be within fourteen days after the receipt laid before the secretary of state; and every thing, that related to the management of the revenues, was to be laid before the commissioners of the treasury. In fact, both descriptions of these papers have been generally communicated to that board.

Defects in the It appears to your committee, that plan, there were great and material defects in both parts of the plan. With regard to the approbation of persons nominated to the supreme council by the court of directors, no sufficient means were provided for carrying to His Majesty, along with the nomination, the particulars in the conduct of those, who had been in the service before, which might render them proper objects of approbation or rejection. The India house possesses an office of record capable of furnishing, in almost all cases, materials for judging on the behaviour of the servants in their progress from the lowest to the highest stations; and the whole discipline of the service, civil and military, must depend upon an examination of these records inseparably attending every application for an appointment to the highest stations. But in the present state of the nomination, the ministers of the Crown are not furnished with the proper means of exercising the power of controul intended by the law, even if they were scrupulously attentive to the use of it. There are modes of proceeding favourable to neglect. Others excite enquiry, and stimulate to vigilance.

Propositions to remedy them.

Your committee, therefore, are of opinion, for the future prevention of cabal, and of private and partial re

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presentation, whether above or below, that whenever any person, who has been in the service, shall be recommended to the king's ministers to fill a vacancy in the council general, the secretary of the court of directors shall be ordered to make a strict search into the records of the company; and shall annex to the recommendation the reasons of the court of directors for their choice, together with a faithful copy of whatever shall be found (if any thing can be found) relative to his character and conduct; as also an account of his standing in the company's service; the time of his abode in India; the reasons for his return; and the stations, whether civil or military, in which he has been successively placed.

With this account ought to be transmitted the names of those, who were proposed as candidates for the same office, with the correspondent particulars relative to their conduct and situation: for not only the separate, but the comparative, merit probably would, and certainly ought to have great influence in the approbation or rejection of the party presented to the ministers of the Crown. These papers should be laid before the commissioners of the treasury, and one of the secretaries of state, and entered in books to be kept in the treasury and the secretary's office.

&c.

Stables.

These precautions, in case of the Appointment nomination of any who have served of counsellors, the company, appear to be necessary from the improper nomination and approbation of Mr. John Macpherson, notwithstand- Macpherson's ing the objections which stood against appointment. him on the company's records. The choice of Mr. John Stables, from an inferiour military to the highest civil capacity, was by no means proper, nor an encouraging example to either service. His conduct, indeed, in the subaltern military situation, had received, and seems to have deserved, commendation; but no sufficient ground was furnished for confounding the lines and gradations of service. This measure was, however, far less exceptionable than the former; because an irregular choice of a less competent person, and the preference given to proved delinquency, in prejudice to uncensured service, are very different things. But even this latter appointment would, in all likelihood, have been avoided, if rules of promotion had been established. If such rules were settled, candidates, qualified from ability, knowledge, and service, would not be discouraged by finding, that every thing was open to every man; and that favour alone did not stand in the place of civil or military experience. The elevation from the lowest stations unfaithfully and negligently filled to the highest trusts, the total inattention to rank and seniority, and much more the combination of this neglect of rank with a confusion (unaccompanied with strong and evident reasons) of the lines of service, cannot operate as useful examples on those, who serve the publick in India. These servants, beholding men, who have been condemned for improper

behaviour to the company in inferiour civil sta- venting the utter and, perhaps, irretrievable ruin of tions, elevated above them, or (what is less blam- | publick affairs. In such a case, the process ought able, but still mischievous) persons without any to be simple, and the power absolute in one, or in distinguished civil talents, taken from the sub- either hand separately. By contriving the balance ordinate situations of another line to their pre- of interests formed in the act, notorious offence, judice, will despair by any good behaviour of gross errour, or palpable insufficiency, have many ascending to the dignities of their own; they chances of retaining and abusing authority, whilst will be led to improve, to the utmost advantage of the variety of representations, hearings, and contheir fortune, the lower stages of power, and will ferences, and possibly the mere jealousy and comendeavour to make up in lucre what they can never petition between rival powers, may prevent any hope to acquire in station. decision; and at length give time and means for settlements and compromises among parties, made at the expence of justice and true policy. But this act of one thousand seven hundred and eighty, not properly distinguishing judicial process from executive arrangements, requires in effect nearly the same degree of solemnity, delay, and detail for removing a political inconvenience, which attends a criminal proceeding for the punishment of offences. It goes further, and gives the same tenure to all who shall succeed to vacancies, which was given to those whom the act found in office.

The temporary appointment by parliament of the supreme council of India arose from an opinion, that the company, at that time at least, was not in a condition, or not disposed to a proper exercise of the privileges, which they held under their charter. It therefore behoved the directors to be particularly attentive to their choice of counsellors on the expiration of the period, during which their patronage had been suspended. The duties of the supreme council had been reputed of so arduous a nature as to require legislative interposition. They were called upon, by all possible care and Another regulation was made in the act, which impartiality, to justify parliament at least as fully has a tendency to render the controul of delinin the restoration of their privileges, as the cir- quency, or the removal of incapacity, in the councumstances of the time had done in their suspen-cil general, extremely difficult, as well as to intro

sion.

But interests have lately prevailed in the court of directors, which, by the violation of every rule, seemed to be resolved on the destruction of those privileges, of which they were the natural guardians. Every new power given has been made the source of a new abuse; and the acts of parliament themselves, which provide but imperfectly for the prevention of the mischief, have, it is to be feared, made provisions, (contrary without doubt to the intention of the legislature,) which operate against the possibility of any cure in the ordinary course.

In the original institution of the supreme council, reasons may have existed against rendering the tenure of the counsellors in their office precarious. A plan of reform might have required the permanence of the persons, who were just appointed by parliament to execute it; but the act of one thousand seven hundred and eighty gave a duration, co-existent with the statute itself, to a council not appointed by act of parliament, nor chosen for any temporary or special purpose: by which means the servants in the highest situation, let their conduct be never so grossly criminal, cannot be removed, unless the court of directors and ministers of the Crown can be found to concur in the same opinion of it. The prevalence of the Indian factions in the court of directors and court of proprietors, and sometimes in the state itself, renders this agreement extremely difficult: if the principal members of the direction should be in a conspiracy with any principal servant under censure, it will be impracticable; because the first act must originate there. The reduced state of the authority of this kingdom in Bengal may be traced in a great measure to that very natural source of independence. In many cases, the instant removal of an offender from his power of doing mischief is the only mode of pre

for vacancies.

duce many other abuses into the original appoint-
ment of counsellors. The inconve- Provisional
niencies of a vacancy in that important appointment
office, at a great distance from the
authority that is to fill it, were visible but your
committee have doubts, whether they balance the
mischief, which may arise from the power given
in this act, of a provisional appointment to vacan-
cies, not on the event, but on foresight. This
mode of providing for the succession has a ten-
dency to promote cabal, and to prevent enquiry
into the qualifications of the persons to be ap-
pointed. An attempt has been actually made in
consequence of this power, in a very marked man-
ner, to confound the whole order and discipline of
the company's service. Means are furnished there-
by for perpetuating the powers of some given court
of directors. They may forestal the patronage of
their successours; on whom they entail a line of
supreme counsellors and governours-general. And
if the exercise of this power should happen in its
outset to fall into bad hands, the ordinary chances
for mending an ill choice upon death or resigna-
tion are cut off.

In these provisional arrangements it is to be considered, that the appointment is not in consequence of any marked event, which calls strongly on the attention of the publick, but is made at the discretion of those, who lead in the court of directors; and they may therefore be brought forward at times the most favourable to the views of partiality and corruption. Candidates have not therefore the notice, that may be necessary for their claims; and as the possession of the office, to which the survivors are to succeed, seems remote, all enquiry into the qualifications and character of those, who are to fill it, will naturally be dull and languid.

Your committee are not also without a grounded apprehension of the ill effect on any existing council general of all strong marks of influence and favour, which appear in the subordinates of Bengal. This previous designation to a great and arduous trust, (the greatest that can be reposed in subjects,) when made out of any regular course of succession, marks that degree of support at home, which may overshadow the existing government. That government may thereby be disturbed by factions, and led to corrupt and dangerous compliances. At best, when these counsellors elect are engaged in no fixed employment, and have no lawful intermediate emolument, the natural impatience for their situations may bring on a traffick for resignations between them and the persons in possession, very unfavourable to the interests of the publick, and to the duty of their

situations.

Since the act, two persons have been nominated to the ministers of the Crown by the court of directors for this succession. Neither has yet been approved. But by the description of the persons a judgment may be formed of the principles, on which this power is likely to be exercised.

Stuart and

Sulivan's appointment to succeed to

Your committee find, that in consequence of the above-mentioned act the honourable Charles Stuart and vacancies. Mr. Sulivan were appointed to succeed to the first vacancies in the supreme council. Mr. Stuart's first appointment in the company's service was in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-one. He returned to England in 1775, and was permitted to go back to India in 1780. In August 1781 he was nominated by the court of directors (Mr. Sulivan and Sir William James were chairman and deputy chairman) to succeed to the first vacancy in the supreme council, and on the 19th of September following His Majesty's approval of such nomination was requested.

Mr. Stuart's

situation at

appointment.

In the nomination of Mr. Stuart, the consideration of rank in the serthe time of his vice was not neglected; but if the court of directors had thought fit to examine their records, they would have found matter at least strongly urging them to a suspension of this appointment, until the charges against Mr. Stuart should be fully cleared up. That matter remained (as it still remains) unexplained from the month of May 1775, where, on the Bengal revenue consultations of the 12th of that month, peculations to a large amount are charged upon oath against Mr. Stuart under the following title; "The Particulars of the Money un"justly taken by Mr. Stuart, during the time "he was at Burdwan." The sum charged against him in this account is 2,17,684 sicca rupees (that is, 25,253 pounds sterling): besides which there is another account with the following title: "The Particulars of the Money unjustly taken "by Cally-persaud Bose, Banyan to the Ho"nourable Charles Stuart, Esquire, at Burdwan, and amounting to sicca rupees 1,01,675."

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(that is, £.11,785.)—a large sum to be received by a person in that subordinate situation.

The minuteness with which these accounts appear to have been kept, and the precision with which the date of each particular, sometimes of very small sums, is stated, give them the appearance of authenticity, as far as it can be conveyed on the face or in the construction of such accounts; and if they were forgeries, laid them open to an easy detection. But no detection is easy, when no enquiry is made. It appears an offence of the highest order in the directors concerned in this business, when, not satisfied with leaving such charges so long unexamined, they should venture to present to the king's servants the object of them for the highest trust, which they have to bestow. If Mr. Stuart was really guilty, the possession of this post must furnish him not only with the means of renewing the former evil practices charged upon him, and of executing them upon a still larger scale, but of oppressing those unhappy persons, who, under the supposed protection of the faith of the company, had appeared to give evidence concerning his former misdemeanours.

This attempt in the directors was the more surprising, when it is considered, that two committees of this house were at that very time sitting upon an enquiry, that related directly to their conduct, and that of their servants in India.

Mr. Sulivan's situation at

the time of his

It was in the same spirit of defiance of parliament, that at the same time they nominated Mr. Sulivan, son to appointment. the then chairman of the court of directors, to the succession to the same high trust in India. On these appointments, your committee thought it proper to make those enquiries, which the court of directors thought proper to omit. They first conceived it fitting to enquire what rank Mr. Sulivan bore in the service; and they thought it not unnecessary here to state the gradations in the service, according to the established usage of the company.

The company's civil servants generally go to India as writers; in which capacity they serve the company five years. The next step, in point of rank, is to be a factor, and next to that a junior merchant; in each of which capacities they serve the company three years. They then rise to the rank of senior merchant, in which situation they remain till called by rotation to the board of trade. Until the passing of the regulation act in 1773, seniority entitled them to succeed to the council, and finally gave them pretensions to the government of the presidency.

The above gradation of the service, your committee conceive, ought never to be superseded by the court of directors, without evident reason, in persons or circumstances, to justify the breach of an ancient order. The names, whether taken from civil or commercial gradation, are of no moment. The order itself is wisely established, and tends to provide a natural guard against partiality, precipitancy, and corruption in patronage.

It

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