nal jurifprudence of England. New principles were introduced, not only into the fyllem of our laws, but into the manners of our people. A new tribunal was erected for the trial of mifdemeanours committed in India, and armed and accompanied with powers unheard of in this .country. The ancient established mmode of trial by a jury and by the country, was renounced as imperfect and inadequate; a new and arbitrary fyftem of enquiry and trial was established in the room of it; and all this was done for reafons and pretences, equally applicable to any other fort of crime, and any other fpecies of offender. Con'fidered as a precedent, it held out a general menace to the whole king dom; it operated directly upon a few, but it threatened us all. Upon this head Mr. Francis particularly infifted upon a paffage in the king's fpeech of May 1784, which was intended to have a retrofpect to Mr. Fox's bill, to which it did not apply, and which was forgetten when they came to agitate Mr. Pitt's bill, of the fpirit of which it had been prophetic. "The affairs of the Eaft India company form an object of deliberation deepty connected with the general interests of the country. While you feel a juft anxiety to provide for the good government of our poffeffions in that part of the world, you will. I trust, never lofe fight of the effect, which any measure to be adopted for that purpose, may have on our own conftitution and our dearest interests at home."

Mr. Francis examined diftinctly the different modes that were employed by the act, for making an inquifition into crimes. The first was that, which obliged every man to give in upon oath an account of his fortune. Mr. Francis examined this provifion, as it would operate

upon the innocent and upon the guilty. From those who were innocent no confeffion could be ex torted; but he denied, that it was in no cafe a hardship and an injustice to an honeft man, to oblige him to declare publicly the exact amount of his property. It might even happen, that the act might be oppreffive in proportion to the innocence of the party. For, though his poverty might prove his innocence, it might eafily happen, that a man might wish to have his innocence proved by any other kind of evidence. We did not live in times in which poverty was refpectable, Mr. Francis feared, that the contrary was true, and that the law, which compelled an honeft man to difcover the narrowness of his circumftances, whatever it might intend, would in effect only ferve to fling difgrace upon ill fortune, and to make an honourable poverty ridiculous. With respect to the guilty the only tendency of the law was to invite him to add one crime to another; and, if he were already guilty of extortion, oppreffion and cruelty, to endeavour to cover it by perjury. The law fhould be tender of creating fuch dilemmas. It was an invitation to falfhood, becaufe it annexed the expectation of impunity for one offence to the commiffion of another,

In the next place the law, in case of any complaint made to the court of exchequer, proceeded to fubject the party to antwer interrogatories upon oath, at the difcretion of the court. It fuppofed the party to have been guilty of perjury in the first instance, and it called upon him either to convict himself of that crime, or to cover it by a series of new perjuries in his anfwers to the interrogatories. In both inftances it revived a mode of inquifition and conviction, which the conflitution

of

of this country held in abhorrence, and which our ancestors vainly imagined they had extirpated for ever, when they abolished the starchamber. The law, having thus exerted its utmost power to extort a discovery by the confeffion of the guilty, proceeded to fupply the defects of that mode by another courfe, which promised indeed greater fuc cefs, but which in Mr. Francis's judgment was ftill more deteftable, because it held out rewards to trea. chery and bafenefs, and tended to corrupt and destroy the little morality we had left in private life. The law formally acknowledged the office of a spy and informer, and rewarded him with a fhare in the forfeiture. Its temptations were held out to perfons whom you might have particularly trusted, your agent, your fecretary, your banker, or your friend. Who could tell but the invitation might feduce a fon to betray his father, a bro. ther to betray his brother, or, which was worst of all, a perfon whom you had effentially ferved to betray his benefactor? The very money you had lent him, if you had omitted it in your account, would be the inftrument of his nefarious purpose. Mr. Francis appealed to every thing that was honourable and virtuous in that house; Was there an object of penal justice against any particular fet of men, adequate to the price they must pay for it, if they fuffered fuch principles as thefe to be introduced, not only into the laws of the kingdom, but into the manners of the people?

Mr. Francis afferted the inititution of the new judicature to be totally unneceflary. A fpecial jury of Engli genilemen, was just as 1.kely to be qualified for this or any other judicial office, as ten members of the lords and commons taken at

a venture. The tribunal abandon. ed the wife and ancient feparation' of the verdict from the judgment, and united in the fame perfons the verdict, the explanation of the law, and the fentence. As, according to this fyftem, feven members conftituted a court, one lord and three judges might find the facts, and on the other hand four commoners might determine the law against the opinion of the three judges. Mr. Francis obferved, that, generally fpeaking, his prefent purpose was not fo much to inftitute as to correct. He meant to take away a great deal, and not to enact much in the place of it. In other circumstances he should have thought himself bound to attempt more than this. If he had been united in views and fentiments with the acting adminif tration, he fhould have extended his thoughts to a comprehensive pofitive inftitution for the better government of India. Standing as he did, he must take care not to aim at any thiag but what might be really attainable, and that, while he was endeavouring to do good, he might be fure of doing no mifchief. His purpofe was to extirpate out of Mr. Pitt's bill the principal evils, to revert to that, which, if not perfect in itself, had not been improved by innovation; to ftrengthen what was good, if it were feeble; and not to enact much by politive inftitution. He would rebuild the houfe he lived in from the foundation if he could; but fince that was not in his power he would endeavour to repair it.

Mr. Dundas replied to Mr. Francis. He employed fome arguments in defence of the board of control; and, for the neceflity of increasing the power of the gove nor-general, he appealed to the opinion of lord Macartney, who had declared, that I 4

none

Upon the question for the fpeaker's leaving the chair, in order to the going into a committee on Mr. Dundas's bill, Mr. Francis ftrenu outly oppofed all farther proceedings. He had lately delivered his fentiments at large upon the act of 1784; but with all its abfurdities he thought that act far lefs excep tionable, than the meafure now under confideration. He predicted the most fatal confequences from the arbitrary power which was to be given to the governor-general, and he reprobated in the strongest terms the union of the offices of commander in chief and governorgeneral in the fame perfon. He animadverted upon what Mr. Dundas had faid in relation to the opinion of lord Macartney. The public judgment on the propriety of that nobleman's refufing the government of Bengal, muft remain in fufpence, till he fhould think it right to affign his reafons. They might be, that he thought the state of affairs defperate; they might be, that he objected to the perfons who compofed the existing council; they could not arife from the want of power attributed to that office, fince the minifters, who were fo loud in their applaufe, would not certainly have refufed to

2

lord Macartney, what they fo liberally conceded to earl Cornwallis. Mr. Francis objected to the idea of placing the inventories of property among the fecret papers of the board of control, fince an end would thus be put to the idea of popular profecution, and the perfons returning from India would be exclufively placed within the arbi trary difpofal of the exifting ad miniftration.

Mr. Burke pronounced an elo, quent invective against the principle upon which Mr. Dundas's fyftem was founded. He faid that no maxim could be more palpably falfe, than that which afcribed energy, vigour and difpatch to a defpotic government. On the contrary the conftant features of arbitrary power were weakness, debility and procraftination. He appealed to the Turkish government for the truth of his affertion. He defired to know where the defpotic government had existed, of which dignity and force were the acknowledged charactes riftics? To what had democracy in all ages and countries owed its triumphs, but to the openness, the publicity and the ftrength of its operations? It was in direct oppofition to all theories of policy and all the principles of human nature, that the exertions of one mind, the most perfect upon earth, fhould be more folid and vigorous, than those which refulted from the joint experience and wifdom of multitudes, combined and matured for that pur pofe. Mr. Burke obferved, that it was ufual to prefume the preamble to every bill to be founded in truth; but the preamble to the prefent claufe, which laid it down as a principle that arbitrary power was neceflary to give vigour and difpatch, was a libel on the liberties of the people of England, and

a fa.