great atrocities is little less mischievous than the readiness to commit them.

Having accomplished the ends for which he had been appointed to his situation, and finding his health impaired by the influence of the climate, Lord Clive finally quitted India in February 1767. During his short administration, he had almost systematized anew the constitution, civil and military, of the presidency of Bengal; he had, in a considerable measure, eradicated the disorders with which the service was infected; he had increased the power, consolidated the possessions, and improved the finances, of the Company; he had arranged the complicated and confused relations subsisting between the British and native governments; he had fenced with safeguards the tranquillity and security of the native population; finally, he had exhibited, in his own conduct, the grand example of a warrior content with civil glory, and a conqueror satisfied with triumphs over domestic corruption. Of the credit due to these services and achievements, the blame which attaches to one or two actions of his life, committed under circumstances of novelty and exigency, cannot divest his memory; nor can it eclipse the splendor of the addition to which his great actions in the state, still better than his victories in arms, entitle his name, that of the Father of the Indo-British empire. This praise, at the same time, is not his alone. Some part, surely, of his pre-eminent fame redounds to the reputation of the body in

whose annals the whole of that fame is blazoned; of those, in whose service his early genius found every incentive of opportunity and patronage, and who honoured his mature experience with an unlimited surrender of their confidence and support,

CHAPTER III.

From the year 1766-7, to the passing of the Regulating Act of 1773.

THE intelligence of the acquisitions made by the Company under the second government of Clive excited no inconsiderable sensation in the minds of the English public. The subject, however, was particularly interesting to those who had the deepest stake in it,-the proprietors of East-India stock. The revenues of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, having become the property of the Company, the idea not unnaturally occurred to some individuals of that body, that their affairs would now admit of a large increase of their annual dividend, which had for some years stood at only six per cent. Others, with the Directors for their leaders, looking to the debts, rather than to the acquisitions, of the society, reprobated this idea; and the dispute between the parties was pursued with such animosity and clamour, as strongly to interest the attention of the legislature and the nation.

It was expected that the question respecting the increase of the dividend would be decided at the Quarterly General Court of the Proprietors, in

September, 1766. The meeting, however, had scarcely opened, when a communication arrived from the first Lord of the Treasury, apprising the Company that, before the close of the ensuing session, their affairs would probably undergo the inspection of Parliament. The notice was evidently intended to operate against an increase of the dividend; but the interference of the minister, even to this extent, in what was deemed private property, was a novelty; and the proprietors, disdaining to be controuled by it, determined, by a great majority, that the dividend for the year from Christmas 1766 to Christmas 1767 should be raised to ten per cent.

In the ensuing month, the subject of the dividend was taken into deliberate consideration by the House of Commons; and the discussions which consequently arose in that assembly, widening as they advanced, at length comprehended or touched every branch of Indian affairs. They had not, however, resulted in any definitive measure, when, on the 6th of May, 1767, the proprie tors resolved that, at the succeeding Midsummer, the dividend should be six and a quarter per cent. Two days afterwards, leave was given in the House of Commons to bring in a bill for the regulation of the dividend on India stock. The Company petitioned against this bill, as an infringement of their charter; but made proposals for a temporary arrangement, on the grounds, that the public should be admitted to a participation in the benefit accruing

from their territorial acquisitions, and that the dividend might be raised to twelve per cent.

The proposal appears to have been most precipitate; but it evidently originated in the eagerness of the proprietors to secure an augmentation in the value of their stock. To this object they were willing to obtain the sanction of the legislature, by admitting the principle that the public should be sharers in the Indian revenues; a principle which, in their deliberate judgment, they would certainly have reprobated as dangerous. The Commons rejected the petition, but accepted, under certain modifications, the proposals for a temporary arrangement.

In consequence of these proceedings, were passed the three acts of the 7th of George III. cc. 48, 49, and 57. Of these acts, the first and second respected the subject of dividends; the second act restrained the Company from voting, before the next session of parliament, a dividend of more than ten per cent. for any time subsequent to the 24th June, 1767. This restriction, although vigorously opposed as a violation of the privileges conferred on the Company, was afterwards continued till February, 1769. By the remaining act, it was stipulated that the Company should retain their territorial acquisitions for two years, on condition that they paid to the public, in each year, the sum of four hundred thousand pounds. No formal provision was, however, made for the renewal of the charter of exclusive trade;