CHAP. 1785. Petitions against the new judicature. Sept. 19. The govern to Lord Macartney. 1786. Jan. 9-13. tion of the grand jury, convened a meeting, at which very animated speeches were made, and resolutions passed, expressing disapprobation of that clause, and also of that which required individuals returning from India to deliver, on oath, an inventory of their whole property. Several minor details were objected to, a committee appointed, and petitions prepared to the King and both Houses of Parliament. With equal promptitude and unanimity, similar proceedings were taken at Madras*. The appointment of a new Governor-general was ment proposed much agitated, both at the Board of Control and in Leadenhall Street. Lord Macartney, having arrived in England, was early applied to, and detailed to the chairman and deputy-chairman of the Directors the principles and regulations to be established before he would accept the office. These were, principally, such support from government as would ensure the subor dination of the military to the civil department; a power of promoting and removing the civil servants of the Company, according to his discretion; and a power to act independently of his council: these were not objected to by the ministry. The opposition expressed great confidence in him; and all parties concurred in applauding his conduct as Governor of Madras; but yet the appointment, which appeared so certain, did not take place. His lordship had an interview with Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas, at which his proposals were, on the whole, approved; although it was said that they could not all be carried immediately into execution; and he required, as a protection against that hostility which he apprehended from some persons in India, a distinguished mark of his Majesty's favour, meaning an English peerage. On the whole, he thought that, although disposed to enter into his views, the minister found a difficulty in assenting to all his proposals; and therefore he was as little 17th Feb. Lord Cornwallis appointed. *See a pamphlet printed at Calcutta, and reprinted in London, called, "The "whole Proceedings of the Meeting held at the Theatre in Calcutta," &c. &c. And one intitled "Resolutions of the Madras Committee," &c. surprised as he was displeased, at learning, three days afterward, that Lord Cornwallis was appointed*. Mr. Francis moved for leave to bring in a bill to explain and amend Mr. Pitt's act, proposed several important changes both at home and abroad, and inveighed with great strength of reasoning against the tyranny of the inventory on oath required by the statute; a regulation, he said, which would often be injurious, in proportion to the innocence of the parties. With equal force and justice he arraigned, as unconstitutional and unjust, the new tribunal and mode of trial created by the act; and shewed, in many instances, how oppressive its regulations necessarily must prove. He also proposed to abridge the powers confided to the Governor-general. Mr. Windham seconded the motion. CHAP. LXI. 1785. 7th March. Parliament to Pitt's act. Motion in amend Mr. Opposed by Mr. Dundas contended, and perhaps rightly, that the trial by jury would be ineffectual and inapplicable; Mr. Dundas. but when he relied on the rank and character of the persons who would compose the court, as forming a guarantee for its justice and temperance, he said no more than had formerly been most truly advanced in fact, although most falsely in its application, for the Star Chamber Court and the High Commission. Equally fallacious was the reasoning by which he justified the admission of documentary evidence; the contents were not to be taken for granted, but to be explained, investigated, and impugned; but if the libels of an enemy, the admissions of a party not authorized to make them, or the confident declarations of very honourable persons, who assume facts upon the rela tion of others, and without any personal knowledge, can once be received in a court of justice in quality of evidence, the defence of a person accused must rest on grounds extremely feeble and uncertain, and the most wholesome principles of justice must be violated. With much better success, he vindicated the powers given to the Governor-general, and shewed, that, far from being retrenched, the public good required that Barrow's Life of Lord Macartney, vol. i. p. 316, et seqq. CHAP. 1785. Motion lost. 16th March. Mr. Dundas brings in a bill. 22nd. Debate in the committee. Speech of they should be augmented. The declaration of property, he said, had been lately under consideration, and ministers intended to submit the matter to Parliament. After a few more observations from Mr. Anstruther, Major Scott, and several other members, the motion was lost without a division. In a few days, Mr. Dundas obtained leave to bring in a bill with nearly the same title as that proposed by Mr. Francis. The alterations were, first, that persons who had served the Company at home, should be eligible members of the council, as well as those who had served in India; second, that, instead of all measures being decided by the majority of the council, the Governor-general should be empowered to adopt such as he might think proper, whether the council agreed with him or not; third, that the Governor might, in case of death, nominate new members of the councilboard; and the Directors were to determine whether the Commander-in-Chief should have a seat or not; and fourth, the mode of succeeding to offices by gradation was to be qualified. The manner of accounting for property acquired, and of trying offences, was also to be considerably altered. No opposition was made to the motion, but Mr. Francis requiring that it should be an instruction, in preparing the bill, that no part of the present law should be confirmed, by which the inalienable birth-right of every British subject to a trial by jury, as declared by Magna Charta, should be taken away or impaired; his motion was negatived on a division*. In the committee, the clauses were warmly debated, principally by the members of opposition. The silence of the ministerial party called forth animadversions from Sir James Erskine, and a thundering philippic from Mr. Burke, who, in his own peculiar manner, said, of the India bills brought in by ministers, that profligacy had first cried out, "Give me despotism;" but hypocrisy, more artful and wily, said, "No, let us come • 85 to 16. upon them by degrees, and then they will submit to "what would have frightened them at first;" and so an abortion of tyranny, like an imperfect fœtus in a bottle, was produced and handed about as a shew; at length, the child's navel-strings broke, and a fullgrown monster of tyranny, the bill upon the table, was brought forth. To administer arbitrary power as a cure for the ills of India, was like that man who said he could apply one short and immediate remedy for the various diseases of the human body-poison. Several other members spoke with considerable warmth; but, after a short reply from Mr. Pitt, the House divided on an amendment, which was negatived*. CHAP. LXI. 1785. Mr. Sheridan, A division had taken place on another clauset, Amendment when Mr. Sheridan observed that the bill consisted of moved by two parts; the first relating to the regulations of the 24th. government of India, the second to the new court of judicature to be instituted at home. These distinct objects should be separately considered; and, as administration had probably made it a condition with Earl Cornwallis that he should go to Bengal invested with certain powers, they might desire to pass that portion of the bill as soon as possible: the same necessity for dispatch did not apply to the clauses on the judicature; and, as they had been but little considered when the India bill passed, he wished to divide that before the House, and separate the two subjects; thus enabling ministers to keep faith with the Governorgeneral, and affording the House the necessary time Agreed to. for discussion. This temperate and well-considered proposition was acceded to without an objection, and the first bill was speedily transmitted to the Lords, where, after one unimportant debate, it passed with- the Commons. out a division. 27th. The bills pass The other bill encountered no opposition in the Debated in lower House in the Lords, the Earl of Carlisle moved the Lords. an amendment; and, in the debate, ministers were ac- June 14th. cused of a systematic design to destroy the trial by jury, a charge which they indignantly denied. Lord CHAP. 1785. Observations of Earl Camden. Of Lord Loughborough. Bill passed. Lord Cornwallis goes to India. Debts of the Camden declared that, if he were to be tried for his life as an Indian delinquent, he would prefer a court constituted like that now proposed to any tribunal in existence. Instead of having neither judge nor jury, it had the benefit of both, so happily blended, that the judges became (what they had never been before) jurors. Lord Loughborough, on the contrary, treated the bill as utterly unnecessary; the law, as it stood, was sufficient to meet every species of delinquency; and, as a proof, he cited the case of Stratton, Floyer, and others, which he, as Attorney-general, had prosecuted with complete success, and in which, it was needless to say, that no evidence was omitted that could have availed the defendants, for Mr. Dunning was his opponent. The amendment was negatived*; the bill passed with some alterations which were assented to by the other House. Thus Lord Cornwallis proceeded to the government of India, invested with powers which assured a proper and necessary control. He was the bearer of a boon which the British residents had so earnestly solicited, which emancipated them from the insufferable oppression of giving, on oath, an inventory of their property, and which mitigated at least, if it did not wholly destroy, a tribunal which they beheld with fear and abhorrence. He was also relieved from the embarrassments and disputes which probably would have arisen with a native power, by the adjustment of certain claims made by British subjects upon Mahommed Ally, the Nabob of Arcot. These demands, some of which had been accumulating during twenty yearst, were taken, including compound interest at 2,945,600 pounds sterling. They had always been the subject of suspicion and inquiry, and, on bringing into Parliament the several bills of Mr. Dundas, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Pitt, an investigation had always been declared necessary. The last in particular enacted that the Court of Directors should take these claims into consideration, and order their presidencies and |