Delphi Complete Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Page 68
(I)
Mr. Pitt’s Bill has provided a Secret Committee, in the Court of Directors, who are bound by a solemn oath, from which the Board of Controul alone can release them: and through the Secret Committee, who are bound to obey all orders of that Board, as the servants in India are bound to obey all orders of the Secret Committee, all the enormous powers and prerogatives before mentioned, may be exercised, without a possibility, should the Commissioners so please, either that the King, the Company, or Parliament, shall ever hear even of such orders, until they shall have been carried into full effect.
(K)
Mr. Pitt’s Bill, in the preamble to all its clauses, professes objects directly contrary to its enactments; and is worded either with such crafty ambiguity, or such contemptuous negligence, that neither those whose interests were to be most affected by it, nor those who have argued most in support of it, have ever been able to agree upon its meaning; and the present Declaratory Law is the fourth subsidiary statute, which, in the space of four years, has in vain endeavoured to explain the original Act.
(L)
Mr. Pitt’s Bill, and all its explanatory and supplemental Acts, are perpetual laws, and profess to be a final arrangement for the Government of India; by which means the Company is wholly at the mercy of the Board of Controul, not only with respect to the renewal of their charter of exclusive trade, but with respect to their claim of property in the territorial revenues in India, as well as in their corporate capacity, as Merchants, intitled to “a free trade in common with the rest of the King’s subjects,” although their monopoly should not be renewed; and in this situation they are placed, in direct violation of the saith of the Legislature, engaged to them for a valuable consideration upon a solemn compact: — while neither against the Board of Controul acting on purposes of exclusive power and ambition, nor against the Crown acting in collusion with the Board of Controul, and covertly directing its measures and its influence, is there any provision made for the danger which may arise to the Constitution.
OBSERVATIONS.
(A) PATRONAGE.
“Patronage in the hands of the Company— “] The purposes to which the Board of Controul may apply their power, and the connexion of that power with Patrouage, is strongly exemplified in their dispute with the Directors, relative to the settlement of the Nabob of Arcot’s debts to individuals, amounting to nearly four millions sterling. The Directors, in pursuance of
the positive injunctions of Mr. Pitt’s Bill,
conceiving themselves
indispensably bound to direct an inquiry to be instituted into the justice and origin of these debts,
draw up their Orders to the Presidency of Madras accordingly. They soon learn, however, that they have another master stronger than the law; for the Board of Controul compel them to admit the whole of these debts without any such investigation as the law directed. The Directors remonstrate in vain. Contrary to what they declare to be their sense of the trust reposed in them, contrary to what they conceive to be their duty under the law, they are compelled to execute the orders of the Board of Controul, as if they had been grounded on their own judgments and conviction. — The Commissioners further adding —
that if any creditor shall be found refractory, or be disposed to the arrangement we have suggested, he shall be dismissed the service, and sent home to England.
(Signed)
HENRY DUNDAS,
MULGRAVE.
WALSINGHAM,
W. W. GRENVILLE,
“Nominating or Appointing] IT has been urged, that Mr. Pitt’s Bill had the merit of expressly directing a reduction of the establishments in India, and of restricting both the Directors and the Board of Controul from sending out new servants. Not even a Cadet beyond what was
actually necessary to keep up the proper complement of officers upon the reduced establishment,
was to be permitted to sail from England. — No such restriction undoubtedly was imposed upon the Directors to be appointed under Mr. Fox’s Bill. Parliament conceived that they had a better security; and the event has shewn that they could not have taken a worse. This cannot be placed in a stronger light than by supposing that Lord Fitzwilliam, and his associates in the new arrangement, had called aloud for checks to be imposed upon them; had solicited to be restrained from the power of dissipating the Company’s revenue, and creating a Military Patronage at their expence; had taken credit for tying up their own hands in their own Bill; and — within a short time after, while the Company had six hundred officers reduced by the Peace establishment in India, had created an opportunity for sending out eighty six NEW officers, APPOINTED BY THEMSELVES, at an expence to the Company of 50,000l per annum in peace, and 86,000l. per annum in war, without a single plea or pretence which would not have been better answered by sending out the man without the officers!
A right of recalling every Person.] IN October 1784, the Directors inform the Board of Controul, that they have appointed John Holland, Esq an old servant of the Company, to succeed to the Government of Fort St. George, upon the death, removal, or resignation of Lord Macartney.
The Board of Controul the Directors’ right of appointment, but remonstrate against the nomination upon certain grounds; giving Mr. Holland, however, due praise, they add, that it is their
wish to enforce to the Directors, the propriety in every appointment, not only of avoiding blameable appointments, but such as may be open to plausible misrepresentation.
The Directors maintain their right, and observe that the Board are interfering in matters,
to which their controul professedly does not extend
The Board of Controul withdraw their opposition with saying,
if the reasons which we have assigned do not satisfy the Court of Directors, we have certainly no right to controul their opinion.
Mr. Holland, however is peremptorily informed, that if he sails for India under the Directors appointment, he will be recalled the instant he arrives there. — The dispute ends; and Sir Archibald Campbell, the friend of Mr. DUNDAS, by a due exertion of the avowed weight of influence, is appointed in his place!
Censure and applause.] IN July 1785, the Directors reprimanded Colonel Ross, for what they maintained to be an outrageous contempt of their authority. The Board of Controul alter the dispatch, and refuse to let the reprimand stand. The Directors remonstrate, and declare that
the present occasion appears to them so momentous, and a submission on their part, so destructive of all order and subordination in India, that they must take the liberty of informing the Right Honourable Board, that no dispatch can be sent to India which does not contain their (the Directors) final decision on Lieutenant Colonel Ross.
The matter is compromised — with a declaration on the part of the Board of Controul, in these words: —
We trust, however, that by this acquiescence, it will not be understood that we mean to recognize any power in YOU to transmit to India, either censure or approbation of the conduct of any servant, Civil or Military, exclusive of the Controul of THIS BOARD.
(Signed)
HENRY DUNDAS,
WALSINGHAM,
W. W. GRENVILLE,
MULGRAVE.
Suspending and rewarding.] IN July 1787, the Court of Directors disapprove of certain allowances, or gratuities, made to Sir John Dalling by the Government of Fort St. George; and tell their President, that, upon a full examination of the matter, they think he has acted improperly. The Board of Controul new model the dispatch, and oblige the Directors to say, that upon mature consideration they are perfectly satisfied: assuring them, that if they will peruse their own papers again, they, (the Board of Controul,) are persuaded
you will be disposed to alter your opinion even more than we have altered your dispatch.
The Court of Directors, “alarmed,” (as they express themselves, in a case of a similar nature respecting Colonel Geils’s allowances,)
at the Board’s exercising a power over their purse, not conceivi
ng it to have been the intention of the Act to give the Board such a power,
remonstrate respectfully upon the occasion, and declare, that
they have endeavoured to adhere to a system of oeconomy which the condition of their finances require, and the Legislature has thought fit to command, and should be happy to meet the approbation and support of the Right Honourable Board therein. The Act of Parliament,
they add,
we conceive, meant to vest in your Right Honourable Board, a controuling power, respecting the great objects of the government of the Company’s affairs, and to leave the liquidation of accounts for services performed, and all such details, in the Court of Directors.
The Board of Controul inform them — that they
continue to be of their former opinion
— they are at a loss to understand the grounds of objection
to their right of controul in this business, as the claims of Sir John Dalling, though he is now out of your service, are founded upon his right when he was in your service, and are to be paid out of the Revenues of India; and of course, your opinions upon them must be subject to our revision.
The Directors finding themselves without a remedy, answer, —
We feel ourselves under the necessity of acquiescing in the determination of your Right Honourable Board. But we trust upon further consideration your Right Honourable Board will not make such allowances, a perpetual charge upon the Company.
With these instances, thus briefly stated, selected from a number of similar cases, and relating to the powers exercised by the Board of Controul, with respect to civil appointments, censure and applause, reward and punishment, military promotion, and the purse of the Company; will it be credited, that any many should have been stout enough to assert in the House of Commons, that
the whole business of Patronage was left exclusively in the hands of the Company, and that the Board of Controul would not even take it if it were offered to them!!!
In truth, the question,
Whether or not the present Board of Controul possess the whole, or any share of the Patronage in India?
has lately been placed in a plainer light by the unguarded confessions of those who supported the Declaratory Bill, than by any thing that could be said by those who opposed it. Some gentlemen defined the authority of the Board on this head to be,
a power of circuitous nomination;
others,
appointment by the weight of influence;
others,
the right of authoritative recommendation;
but by whatever name it is called, or however the exercise of it may be disclaimed, these facts are plain, 1st, That all the unbounded means of Patronage and Protection which the Governor General and the Presidents of the different Councils possess, belong to those to whom in reality they owe their appointments, and to whom only in fact they owe obedience. 2dly, That the Board of Controul are obviously seizing the whole of the Military Patronage into their own hands, the intention of extinguishing the Company’s service being plainly avowed. 3dly, That no person can look for protection to any quarter but to the Board, or think of accepting any appointment against their will, in the civil line.
One distinction, however, is constantly taken upon this subject, namely, that Mr. Pitt’s Commissioners do not meddle with the Patronage at home, which it is affirmed would have been at the disposal of Lord Fitzwilliam’s Board, under Mr. Fox’s Bill. This Patronage, whatever it is, is always magnified, and never explained. As far as it means the nomination of Clerks, and other officers at the India House, it is not an object very much worth dispute: but as far as it relates to contracts, and money laid out in shipping and trade at home, it should not be forgotten, that the management of these matters was not placed in Lord Fitzwilliam’s Board, by Mr. Fox’s Bill, but in a Board of Assistant Directors, appointed by Parliament from among the then existing Directors or Proprietors of India Stock, for that special purpose. These Assistant Directors, however, being bound to obey the orders of the Superior Board, Lord Fitzwilliam might have commanded their Patronage, and perverted their commercial dealings to his own political purposes — granted — there was certainly no security against so flagrant an abuse of trust, but in the character of the person trusted; and what reason is there to think that the present Board of Controul have no weight of influence with respect to this very Patronage, if they chose to act as they suppose Lord Fitzwilliam would have done? Or, who is there that does not see that the Court of Directors are becoming every day mere instruments in the hands of this Board, and that there can be nothing of exclusive Patronage belonging to them, more than would have belonged to the Assistant Directors under Mr. Fox’s Bill? In plain sense, the whole and only difference, in point of Patronage, between the two Boards, is, that by Mr. Fox’s Bill it was given directly, and must have been exercised openly; by Mr. Pitt’s Bill it is given circuitously, and may be exercised secretly.
(C)
“Appeal to the King.— “] The application to the King in Council, which Mr. Pitt’s Bill declares it shall be lawful for the Court of Directors to make, whenever they conceive the orders of the Board not to relate to points connected with the Civil or Military Government and Revenues in India, is a strange mockery, when gravely held out to the Company as a security against encroachment or interference in Commercial matters, on the part of the Board of Controul. It proves, however, how perfectly distinct, in theory at least, the framers of this Bill considered the Board of Controul, from the general executive government of the country: — the limits of the authority of the Directors are circumscribed within certain bounds, and if they transgress them, or refuse obedience where the law has commanded them to pay it, redress is provided in the common course of law. The law also prescribes limits to the authority and controul of the Commissioners; but it provides no redress should they transgress them. The most flagrant abuse of their trust under their own Bill, would be in any instance to assume the management of the Company’s Commerce; yet if they can craftily effect this, they may do it with impunity; and whenever they are opposed, if they can procure the sanction of the Council on their side, that is, fairly speaking, of themselves in a different character — they have the law on their side also!
But there is nothing more curious than to observe the preposterous and degrading office which these zealous advocates for the dignity and prerogatives of the Crown, have provided for the Monarch, were ever such an appeal to be made. — His Majesty, in Council, shall decide,
whether the dispatch, or order, referred to his Royal judgment, be, or be not, connected with the Civil or Military Government and Revenues of the territories and possessions in India;
and this decision is to be made upon such statements and information as the parties shall condescend to favour him with, upon subjects wholly removed from the ordinary contemplation of his Majesty’s Government. Mr. Dundas asserts, that the measure proposed belongs to his department exclusively — being a measure relating to war, or peace, or negociation or revenue; and that therefore his will and pleasure ought to have been implicitly obeyed. The Directors humbly contend, without presuming to question the sovereignity of the Board of Controul, that the measure is of a Commercial nature merely. — His Majesty sits the unprincely umpire between his contending subjects, deciding upon the extent of Imperial prerogatives, in the exercise of which he has neither will nor voice.
But, if any thing further were wanting to shew the falacy of this pretended security to the rights of the Company, we find it amply made out in the notable device of compelling the Directors to establish a Secret Committee, to be solely under the orders of the Board of Controul. The Secret Committee was accordingly soon employed contrary to the professed purpose of its institution; and it was as soon predicted, that the whole affair of an appeal to the King in Council, might at once be evaded by the Board of Controul directing, through their Secret Agents, as matter connected with revenue or negotiation, whatever commercial arrangement they pleased
. — But it occurred to no man, that the Board would be so unwary, at least till the system should be more fully established, as to endeavour to adopt a precedent for a right of direct controul and management over commercial matters, without cover or pretence, by means of or in collusion with, the Secret Committee: yet has this already been the case. The Secret Committee, (to whom, however, no intentional ill-conduct is meant to be imputed,) on the first of June 1786, assume, in concert with the Board of Controul, powers from which both by law and the nature of their trust, they were equally excluded. They take upon themselves to direct a purchase of cotton to be made at Bombay, for exportation to China, and order five ships to receive the cargo; and direct the remittance of a considerable sum from home, to answer the expence, all without the authority or knowledge of the Directors. The Board of Controul approve the measure, and the dispatch, in the following terms, unguardedly called in the House of Commons,— “blindly lending their name in the usual form.”
Whitehall, 2d June, 1786.
Approved by the Board with an omission of the words within brackets , beginning at ‘considering the’ and ending at ‘Controul,’ in the fourth paragraph of this draft.
W. PITT,
HENRY DUNDAS,
W. W. GRENVILLE,
MULGRAVE.
The measure itself also was so far from being universally approved of by the Court of Directors, when made known to them, as was also unguardedly insinuated, that a very strong Protest against the whole proceeding, was entered upon the records of the Company, in which it was declared to be a transaction
contrary to the original constitution of the Company, and to every subsequent Act of Parliament which has passed relative to its affairs; and that if the like power shall be extended to other objects, and to other Presidencies, which it may be, under the same pretext on which it has been assumed and exercised on the present occasion, the collective authority of the Court of Directors will be annihilated, the legal mode of conducting the Company’s business set aside, and ANOTHER SYSTEM introduced, illegal in itself, and dangerous in its consequences..