of arbitrary power, that it fhould be fubjected to neither account nor control. In the prefent instance, the whole of the confultations upon the fubject was to be recorded; the reafons which induced the go, vernor-general to differ in opinion from his council, the circumstances by which the neceffity of a diferetionary proceeding was conftituted, and the arguments of each of the diffenting members; who were re quired to enter a protest in juftification of their perievering oppofition. Here then parliament was prefented with the most effectual means of refponfibility that human wifdom had yet devifed, or that the moft wary fufpicion could poffibly fuggeft. In the farther progrefs of the committee, it was moved by Mr. Sheridan, as it had been by Mr. Eden in the cafe of the regulating act of 1784, that the bill fhould be divided into two parts, and that the provifions, relative to the political government, and relative to the profecution of offences, fhould be feparately brought under the difcuffion of parliament; and in this inftance his effort was fuccefsful. A few days after the adoption of this propofal, Mr. Dundas acquainted the houfe, that, in compliance with the fentiments and apprehenhons of feveral refpectable charac. ters, he was defirous of altering the plan of the latter of thefe two bills, from the state in which he had originally prefented it to the houfe, and to give up wholly and unrefervedly the intended difclofure of property. In confequence of this alteration of fyftem, he desired leave entirely to withdraw the bill, and to prefent it anew in an improved form. The bill relative to delinquencies, varied in another particular from the regulating act of 1784, and permitted an appeal from the new court of judicature to the court of king's bench, and to the houfe of lords. It alfo introduced fome change in the proceedings in relation to the ballot in the two houfes of parliament, which was intended to facilitate that part of the proceeding. In the laft ftage of the bill explaining and amending the mode of government for India, Mr. Dempfter propofed a claufe, in imitation of Mr. Fox's India bill, limiting the duration of the act to the term of five years; but the suggestion was rejected upon a divifion. In the houfe of lords, both thefe bills underwent a confiderable degree of difcuffion. There was a claufe in the former, which in its operation tended to deprive general Sloper, who had been fent out commander in chief in India in the year 1784, of his feat as a member of the fupreme council; and of confequence, exclufively of the diminution of rank and importance, to reduce his emoluments from fixteen thousand, to fix thoufand pounds per annum. This circumftance excited much difcuffion in both houfes of parliament. It was complained of by Mr. Sloper, brother to the general, and member for St. Alban's, who moved an amendment, limiting the operation of the claufe to future appointments; and it was obferved upon by Mr. Fox and others, as very extraordinary, that this mark of indignity fhould be fixed upon general Sloper, who had not yet had time to do any thing by which he could deferve the ftigma. It was an indirect and an infidious way of compelling him to refignation; and on that account, was entitled to a ftrenuous oppofition. The difcuifion called out an eulogium upon this officer from both fides of the houfe; and adminiftration warmly difclaimed the idea of the meature, having been dictated by any kind of perfonality. perfonality. On the other hand, earl Fitzwilliam, and lord viscount Storanont, ftrongly infinuated in the house of lords, that the fact originated in fome fecret motives, and that it was occafioned by a difappointment of a candidate who had entered the lifts with gen. Sloper, By thefe noblemen, and by the earl of Carlifle and lord Loughborough, the bill was alfo generally oppofed, while the rectitude of the measure was vindicated by lord Walfingham, the earl of Abingdon, and lord Thurlow. Upon the bill for the punishment of offences, an amendment was moved by the earl of Carlile, the tenden ey of which was, to repeal the inftitution of the new court of judicature, along with the repeal, which government had thought fit to adopt, of the inquifition into delinquencies. The amendment was ftrongly fupported by lord Loughborough and viscount Stormont; and oppofed by the marquis of Carmarthen and lord Camden, who declared himself particularly pleafed with that provifion of the act of 1784, by which the offices of judge and jury were fo happily blended, and by which the judges were called, as they had never been before, to concur in a general decifion. The house divided upon the amendment, contents 9, non-contents 39. During the pendency of these bills, and in the beginning of May, a bill was introduced into parliament by Mr. Dundas, and paffed both houfes with great rapidity, the defign of which was, to obviate a doubt which had arifen in India, whether the king's fign-manual was not neceffary to be fubfcribed to every commiffion, appointing a governorgeneral or commander in chief in India, and declaring the validity of fuch commiffions, as that of lord Macartney and earl Cornwallis, neither of which had been attended with this formality. On the ninth of June, the house of commons proceeded to take into their confideration a petition, which had been prefented on the part of the court of directors of the East India company, ftating certain emergencies arifing from the pecu liar fituation of their commercial concerns, and praying for parlia mentary relief. An explanation of the nature of the cafe was given by Mr. Pitt. He obferved, that the eftimate, which had formerly been delivered in by the company, was found by experience to fall confiderably fhort of the amount neceffary for carrying on their trade. This did not arife from any want of accuracy in forming that eftimate, but from a material alteration in the circumstances of the company, which had fince taken place; but which at that time, could not have been foreseen. The increase of the company's fales of tea was, from about, fix million pounds annually, its former amount, to fourteen million pounds, befide an increase upon fome other articles in which they dealt; and it was obvious to every one who, confidered the fubject, that, in proportion to an increase of trade, an increafe of capital became indifpenfably neceffary. The commutation act, to which the prefent profperity of the company was chiefly to be afcribed, had indeed in fome degree foreftalled this ne ceffity. But certain heavy expences under which the company had recently laboured, and the extraor dinary charges attending the winding up of the expenditure of the war, created a temporary difficulty, for the relief of which the affiftance of parliament was now demanded. The company did not come to the legislature to afls a loan of the public money, money, but merely to obtain leave' to make use of their own credit for that purpose, from which, by the provifions of existing laws, they were at prefent restrained. Mr. Pitt ftated 2,000,000l. as a fum, the Immediate application of which he conceived would be adequate to their relief; and he explained the mode, by which the money was propofed to be raifed, to be, firft, by taking in fubfcriptions, at the prefent market price of East India ftock to the amount of 800,000l. in addition to their prefent capital. This at 160 per cent. would produce about 1,200,001. He alfo farther propofed to permit them to fell that part of an annuity, which was payable to them out of the exchequer, and which constituted the interest of a certain fum which they had raised for the fervice of government, that was yet unalienated; and the produce of this he estimated at 800,000l. He concluded with moving two refolutions, the object of which was conformable to the prayer of the petition. Mr. Sheridan immediately rofe to animadvert upon the conduct of Mr. Pitt, and he spoke again more largely upon the fubject in the progrefs of the bufinefs. A report of the fituation of the affairs of the Eaft India company, intended to demonftrate the reafonablepefs and the advantage of the relief they de fired, had been laid by the court of directors upon the table of the house of commons, and Mr. She ridan particularly attached himself to the demonftrating the erroneouf nefs and fallacy of their cltimates. He obferved, that it was highly reprehenfible to introduce, at fo late a period of the feffion, an important fubject, and which required the moft deliberate difcuffion; and paricularly culpable, in his opinion, was the negligent way in which it' had been opened by the minister, as if it were of little confequence, and fit to be treated as a matter of courfe. He had no manner of doubt, that the delay was contrived on purpose, to fuperfede investigation, and elude the detection of the fophiftry upon which the bill was founded. He placed the ftrefs of his remarks upon two points in the report of the company, the quantity or amount of the remittance to China, furnished from Bengal, and the amount of the furplus of the revenues of that province. The remittance to China was taken at 275,000l. and Mr Sheridan employed many arguments to demon-* ftrate that not more than 6000l. or 7000l. had actually been furnished. The furplus of the revenues was eftimated at 1,800,000l, and this Mr. Sheridan, by his calculation, reduced to the authority of Mr. Haftings in a 1. He quoted pamphlet entitled, A Review of the' State of Bengal, in which it was afferted, that the utmost furplus revenue that could ever be furnished by that province, was 1,000,000l. Mr. Sheridan obferved, that the report upon their table fet out with confeffing the errors of which they had been guilty in their estimates of 1784, and called for a new degree of reliance upon their prefent reprefentations, without their poffeff. ing in reality any better claim to the public confidence. He enlarged upon the immenfe quantity of bills* drawn from India upon the com pany at home; and declared, that, in ten years time, bills would be' due to the amount of 12,000,000l. Thus in fact, fo far from the com pany's affairs in India wearing promifing afpect, their appearance was in the highest degree alarming; they feemed to be rapidly verging to a ftate of bankruptcy, and were already fo deeply involved, that the relief now propofed was a mere tampering with the diforder, and could never work an adequate and effectual cure. Mr. Dundas replied to thefe ob fervations. He denied that the remittance to China had ever been ftated as having been made entirely in fpecie; and he endeavoured to prove, that the fum that was given was accurate, including in his ac count the export of opium to that country, and the export of the raw material of the cotton manufacture. Mr. Dundas faid, that he had no objection to confefs that Mr. Haftings was with him a favourite au thority, because he was, generally fpeaking, an authority to be relied on. But, in the prefent inftance, Mr. Haftings's eftimate was found ed on the actual expence of the Bengal establishment at the time; and the reduction fince ordered from home had been fo important and effectual, as to have totally altered the nature of the cafe. Mr. Dundas undertook to evince the found policy of the permiffion, which was granted by the prefent bill of relief to the company's fervants in India, to tranfmit their fortunes to Eng land through the medium of the company's investments, exchanging the money which was thus advanced for bills payable in Leadenhallftreet. He stated, that the practice had been for the fhips of other European powers, our rivals in the commerce of India, to fail for the Ganges, and to trust for the money to purchase an investment, folely to the tranfmiffion to Europe through their hands, of the fortunes of the fervants of the company. In lieu of the twelve millions of debt predicted by Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Dundas remarked, that a new capital, to the amount of twelve millions, was at the fame time forming. As faft as it accrued, so much in proportion flowed into the company's treafury at home, and the means of difcharging the debt uniformly ac companied its accumulation. This was the fyftem which found policy directed us to purfue; nor could he ever confent, that the company fhould call itself a wealthy and flou rishing company at home, and a poor and diftreffed company in India. Mr. Dundas pronounced a panegyric upon the prefent ftate of this part of the empire. It was true, that, greatly exhausted by the late ruinous war, it required, as Bri tain herself did, to be managed with every poffible care and attention. But then India had in pros portion fewer difficulties to encounter. He hoped fpeedily to see our oriental poffeffions with a powerful army, upon which their existence depended, and a reduced and eco nomical civil government, with their revenues increased, their expences moderate, their investments large, and their commerce flourishing. Mr. Francis followed Mr. Dundas. He alluded to what was now acknowledged to have been the state of affairs in Bengal in 1784, when there appeared to be a deficiency of 1,650,000l. This deficiency, it feemed, was now converted, by a glorious reduction, into a furplus of 1,800,00ol. fo that between the one period and the other there was a dif ference of three millions. If Mr. Dundas was founded in bis affertion, what must have been the establifhment which could have admitted of fuch a reduction, and what fort of argument did this circumftance furnish refpecting the conduct of the late governor-general? Mr. Francis expatiated upon the contrast between the the prefent report and the report of 1784. He recited the different balances of cafh in the treasury of Bengal, for the four enfuing years, as they had been ftated in the former, and fet against them the ba lances to the disadvantage of the treasury in thefe years, as they were admitted in the latter. He observed, that the amount of the bills to be drawn upon London were now admitted nearly to double the amount at which they had been flated to parliament in 1784; and he endeavoured to prove from authentic papers, that the company's debt in India at this day muft exceed the fum of twelve millions. Mr. Francis animadvered upon a paffage in the report, where it was faid, that, whether the mode proposed for paying the bond debt took place or not; in other words, whether bills to the amount of fix millions more fhould be drawn upon them or not; " it would not make any important va riation in the state of the company's affairs, with refpect to the fum wanted in India for the ordinary currency." They obferved, that if the creditors preferred being paid in India, it would leffen the funds allotted to the investment; bur, if they confented to be paid in England, the amount would be brought home in investments, and out of them the bills would be paid. If this fate of the cafe were true, it would be bad enough, fince then the investment would be brought home folely for the creditors, not for the company. Then however the money applicable to the discharge of the bonded-debt would exist somewhere. But the fact was, that, fo far from there being a single rupee of furplus in Bengal, they had not fufficient to pay their current expences, and were obliged to borrow money, to provide for the annual interest of the existing debt. Mr. Francis defcribed the company's credit in India as being in a ruinous condition, while their bonds were negotiated at thirty per cent. discount. In this fituation, the fupreme council had refolved," that the whole civil fervice, exclufively of the finaller falaries, fhould be paid by a further iffue of paper; and thus of course they were increafing the discount, and finking the value of the bonds to nothing. Mr. Grenville remarked, in terms of great feverity, upon what he denominated, the egregious attempt to deceive the members of that houfe, on the part of Mr. Francis. The fact was, that in the 1,650,000l. the unfunded debt of Bengal was included; and therefore it would have been just as fair for any perfon, in comparing the annual income of Great Britain with its annual expenditure at the end of the war, to have included the thirtyfix millions of unfunded debt, as a part of the deficiency of the year's income. Nor was Mr. Francis, in the opinion of Mr. Grenville, lefs wanting in refpect, both to the house and to himself, when he glanced in terms of fuch ungovernable feverity at the conduct of Mr. Haftings, In the courfe of the debates upon the relief bill, the question was revived, of how far government rendered itfelf refponfible by acts of this nature, for the debts of the company. The affirmative fide of the question was efpoufed by fir Grey Cooper, Mr. Huffey, and Mr. Sheridan, and their reasonings upon the fubject were answered by Mr. Dundas. A petition was alfo prefented from the court of direc tors, ftating, that the bill for the relief of the company then before the |