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1773.

1783, was the ballot; " by means of which, acts," they said, " of the highest CHAp. IX. concern to the Company and to the state, might be done by individuals with perfect impunity." There are occasions on which the use of the ballot is advantageous. There are occasions on which it is hurtful. If we look steadily to the end, to which all institutions profess to be directed, the common and public good, we shall not find it very difficult to draw the line of demarcation.

On all those occasions on which the interests which are liable to act secretly upon the voter have a tendency to seduce him from the path of probity, while those which act openly and are avowed have a tendency to retain him in that path, the publicity of the vote is of the highest importance. On all those occasions, on which the motives which act secretly are on the side of probity, those which act publicly are on the side of vice, the secrecy of the vote is eminently useful. In other words, wherever the voter's own interests and inclinations, if he is left to himself, are sure to point in the right direction, while he is liable to be acted upon in a sinister direction by the will and power of others, the ballot is a great security for good. Wherever the man's own interests and inclinations point in the sinister direction, while he is still capable of being restrained by the voice of public detestation or applause, the ballot affords only a security for corruption. The East India Company presents an instance of the baneful operation of the ballot; where it is possible for a majority of Proprietors to have interests in the highest degree inconsistent with those of the public, but interests which the force of the public sanction, concentrated upon the acts of every individual, would have a tendency to prevent them from pursuing. The election of members to serve in parliament presents an instance of the salutary operation of the ballot; it being impossible for the mass of individuals who compose the nation to have interests hostile to the nation, but it being very possible for a great proportion of them to be acted upon by persons who have.

At the very time when the discussions upon the new regulations were taking place, the Chairman of the Select Committee came forward with a motion for inquiry into the circumstances of the deposition and death of Suraja Dowla ; into the imposture, by a fictitious treaty, practised upon Omichund; the elevation of Meer Jaffier; and the sums of money, in the shape of presents, obtained at the time of that revolution. Crimes of the blackest dye, rapacity, treachery, cruelty, were charged upon the principal actors in that suspicious scene; and the punishment, even of Clive, as the first and principal delinquent, was represented as a necessary act of justice and policy. On the 10th of May, the following resolutions were moved; 1. "That all acquisitions, made under the

1773.

BOOK IV. influence of a military force, or by treaty with foreign Princes, do of right belong to the state; 2. That to appropriate acquisitions so made, to the private `emolument of persons entrusted with any civil or military power of the state, is illegal; 3. That very great sums of money, and other valuable property, have been acquired in Bengal, from Princes and others of that country, by persons entrusted with the military and civil powers of the state, by means of such powers; which sums of money and valuable property have been appropriated to the private use of such persons." These resolutions were warmly adopted by the house. But when the application of them came to be made to individuals; and especially when the ruin was contemplated which that application would draw down upon Clive; compassion for the man, and the consideration of his services, blotted by offences, yet splendid and great, operated with effect in the breasts of the assembly, and put an end to the inquiry. According to the style which the spirit of English laws renders predominant in English councils, the rejection of inquiry was ostensibly placed upon a mere evasion, of the nature of a legal shuffle; the pretence, to wit, of incompetence in the reports in the Select Committee to be received as evidence. As if that were true! As if no other evidence were to be had! On the other hand, the considerations which fairly recommended the rejection, or at least a very great modification of the penal proceeding, were not so much as mentioned; That the punishment threatened was more grievous than the offence; that it was punishment by an ex-postfacto law, because, however contrary to the principles of right government the presents received from Meer Jaffier, and however odious to the moral sense the deception practised upon Omichund, there was no law at the time which forbid them; that the presents, how contrary soever to European morals and ideas, were perfectly correspondent to those of the country in which they were received, and to the expectations of the parties by whom they were bestowed; that the treachery to Omichund was countenanced and palliated by some of the principles and many of the admired incidents of European diplomacy; that Clive, though never inattentive to his own interests, was actuated by a sincere desire to promote the prosperity of he Company, and appears not in any instance to have sacrificed what he regarded as their interests to his own; and that it would have required an extraordinary man, which no one ought to be punished for not being, to have acted, in that most trying situation in which he was placed, with greater disinterestedness than he displayed.

Financial and commercial

The inquiry into the financial and commercial state of the Company exhibited state of the the following results. The whole of their effects and credits in England, esti

Company.

1773.

mated on the 1st day of March, 1773, amounted to 7,784,6897. 12s. 10d.; and CHAP. IX. the whole of their debts to 9,219,1147. 12s. 6d.; leaving a balance against the Company of 1,434,4247. 19s. 8d. The whole of their effects and credits in India, China, and St. Helena, and afloat on the sea, amounted to 6,397,2997. 10s. 6d. The whole of their debts abroad amounted to 2,032,3067.; producing a balance in their favour of 4,364,9931. 10s. 6d. Deducting from this sum the balance against the Company in England, we find the whole amount of their available property no more than 2,930,568/. 10s. 10d.; so that of their capital stock of 4,200,000l., 1,269,4317. 9s. 2d. was expended and gone.*

From the year 1744, the period to which in a former passage † is brought down the amount of the dividend paid annually to the Proprietors on the capital stock, that payment continued at eight per cent. to the year 1756, on which it was reduced to six per cent. It continued at that low amount till Christmas, 1766, when it was raised by the General Court, repugnant to the sense of the Court of Directors, to five per cent. for the next half year. On the 7th of May, 1767, it was resolved in the General Court, that for the following half year the dividend should be six and a quarter per cent. But this resolution was rescinded by act of parliament, and the dividend limited, till further permission, to ten per cent. per annum. It was continued at ten per cent. till the year commencing at Christmas, 1769, when, in pursuance of the new regulations, it was advanced to eleven per cent. The next year it rose to twelve per cent. The following year it was carried to its prescribed limits, twelve and a half per cent.; at which it continued for eighteen months, when the funds of the Company being totally exhausted, it was suddenly reduced to six per cent. per annum, by a resolution passed on the 3d of December, 1772.‡

In the interval between 1744 and 1772, the sales at the India House had

* Second Report of the Committee of Secrecy in 1773. The Committee say, "They have not intended in the above account any valuation of the fortifications and buildings of the Company abroad. They can by no means agree in opinion with the Court of Directors, That the amount of the fortifications, &c. should be added to the annual statement.'"-Undoubtedly no effects of any party can be compared with his debts, farther than they can be disposed of for the payment of those debts; the manure which a farmer has spread upon his fields, or the hedges and ditches with which he has surrounded them, are nothing, the moment his lease is expired. The money expended in fortifications and buildings, from May 1757, was stated at nearly four millions.

+ Supra, p. 30.

See the Third and Eighth Reports of the Committee of Secrecy in 1773.

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1773.

Book IV. increased from about 2,000,000%. to 3,000,000l. annually; their annual exports, including both goods and stores, had fully doubled. In the year 1751, the total amount of shipping in the service of the Company was 38,441 tons, in the year 1772 it was 61,860.*

* Fifth Report of the Committee of Secrecy.

BOOK V.

FROM THE FIRST GREAT CHANGE IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
AND IN THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, IN 1773; TILL THE SECOND GREAT CHANGE, BY
THE ACT, COMMONLY CALLED MR. PITT'S ACT, IN 1784.

CHAP. I.

Administration of Hastings till the Time when the Parliamentary Members of the Council arrived and the Operations of the New Constitution commenced, including-Arrangements for collecting the Revenue and administering Justice ostensibly as Duan-Treatment of Mahomed Reza Khan and the Rajah Shitabroy-Elevation of Munny Begum-Destruction of the Rohillas-Sale of Corah and Allahabad to the Vizir- Payment refused of the Emperor's Revenue-Financial results.

1772.

MR. HASTINGS was nominated Governor-General by the new parliamentary CHAP. I. authority; and General Clavering, Colonel Monson, Mr. Barwel, and Mr. Francis, the members of the new parliamentary council; not to be removed First Governduring the period assigned in the act, except by the King, upon representation or-General and supreme made by the Court of Directors. Mr. Hastings had ascended with reputation Council. through the several stages of the Company's service; had the rank of a member of council at the time of Mr. Vansittart's administration, and generally concurred in the measures which the party opposed to that Governor so violently condemned. After a visit to his native country, to which he returned at the same time with Vansittart, he was sent back to India, in 1769, to the station of second in council at Madras; and in the beginning of 1772 was raised to the highest station in the service of the Company, being appointed to succeed Mr. Cartier in the government of Bengal.

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