Delphi Complete Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan

by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  (Signed)

  JOSEPH SPARKES,

  RICHARD HALL,

  JOHN ROBERTS,

  FRANCIS BARING,

  GEORGE CUMING,

  CHARLES MILLS.

  East-India House, 22nd August, 1786.

  It is plain, that no proceeding could be more unwarrantable in all its parts. The Board of Controul gave an illegal sanction to an illegal transaction. And both parties seem to have been surprized into a small neglect of the spirit of their oath of office. The Members of the Secret Committee take an oath, that

  they will, according to the best of their skill and judgment, faithfully execute the several trusts and powers reposed in them as Members of the Secret Committee, appointed by the Directors of the United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies.

  — They also swear secrecy to the Board of Controul; but the trust required by their oath to the Directors, is clearly to confine themselves to the purposes of their appointment; and those purposes are accurately defined by the Act that authorizes their institution, to be the executing of the secret orders and instructions of the Board of Controul, concerning the levying of war, or making of peace, or treating or negotiating with any of the native Princes or States of India. The Board of Controul also swear to execute faithfully the several powers and trusts reposed in them; by the spirit of which oath they are unquestionably precluded from circumventing the Court of Directors in the management of their Commerce. Whether the transaction itself was likely to be profitable, or otherwise, to the Company, is nothing to the purpose, the consequences to which the principles and the precedent lead, must be obvious to every one.

  “Power over the territorial revenues.”] THE Court of Directors, in the last statement of their affairs laid before Parliament, directed the attention of the House of Commons to the two funds from which their resources are to arise, and from which they are to derive the means of extricating themselves from their difficulties. These are, the profits of their trade with India and China; and the surplus of their territorial revenues. The former they state upon a very sanguine calculation of their probable amount, as sufficient, besides providing for the China investment, to pay the debts then engaged to be discharged at home, and the debts proposed to be brought home from India, to which purpose their faith is engaged. The latter, the surplus of their territorial revenue, as the fund upon which their India investment is to depend; and over THIS FUND THE BOARD OF CONTROUL CLAIM AN ABSOLUTE POWER.

  (D)

  Expostulation and Remonstrances of the Directors.] The differences which have subsisted between the Court of Directors and the Board of Controul, have not been upon measures, or upon matters of opinion, or upon trivial points; but all of them upon questions of right, of law, and upon the nature and limits of their respective powers. Such differences, however, will probably no more be heard of. — The last ineffectual struggle of the Company appears to have been made. In one dispute they tried in vain to obtain the Minister’s countenance to apply to the Representatives of the People to arbitrate between them and the Board of Controul. In another, they requested to be permitted to apply to the King; — this was also refused. In the last, they looked for redress in an appeal to the Courts of Justice; in this they were frustrated by the Legislature being induced to think it proper to decide the point, and declare the law against them. Thus circumstanced, shut out from Law, Parliament, and the Throne, it is but reasonable to believe that the Court of Directors will no more be heard of, but as an instrument to serve the ambition, or to skreen the misconduct of their masters.

  (E) FOURTH ESTATE.

  “New Estate or Department— “] The purposes and characters of men have been often misrepresented and misunderstood through the efforts and prejudices of party; but it is a most singular circumstance that nearly a whole nation should have been persuaded to understand a Bill passed in the House of Commons, and given to the public in print, in a manner directly contrary to its plain meaning and express provisions; and that even sober and rational men should have joined in the outcry against it, without giving themselves the trouble to examine whether it really was the measure which it was represented to be.

  Whatever other faults were found with Mr. Fox’s Bill, nothing certainly operated more in the clamour that was raised against it, than a confused notion that it some way or other attacked the prerogatives of the Crown, and aimed to take from the King certain powers and authorities which of right belonged to him. This idea, whether urged by the mob as

  an attempt to take the Crown from the King’s head,

  or, in the politer jargon, of a

  fourth estate,

  and

  imperium in imperio,

  was certainly a main ingredient in the delusion which pervaded the country at the last general election. Yet is it utterly impossible for any man of common sense to read the Bill attentively, without being puzzled to guess at the ground upon which such a deception could so long have been maintained.

  Mr. Fox’s Bill enacted in fact nothing new of any sort with respect to the Royal Authority; nor did it contain any one thing in derogation of any one prerogative of the Crown. If the existence of Directors for the management of the affairs of the East India Company constituted a fourth Estate, that fourth estate existed before; and this very phrase is to be found in pamphlets written against this very Company twenty years since. If a parliamentary nomination of persons to be concerned in the government of India, was an attack upon the constitution, the constitution had sustained and survived a similar attack in the Regulating Act of 1773, and in the subsequent Bills which repeated those Parliamentary appointments. If the employing the Patronage of the Company, without the King’s authority, was an invasion of his prerogative, it was of a prerogative never heard of, for the Crown had never had the grant of a single office, civil or military, belonging to the service of the East India Company. In fact so far as the Crown was concerned at all, it acquired, in the right of nominating to the vacant offices in the new commission, a power the King had never possessed before. Whether the new Directors for the affairs of India were likely to make a better government than the old, is not the question; the extraordinary circumstance is, that this Bill, which left the Crown in the full possession of its prerogatives of war, peace, and negotiation in India, should have been represented as depriving it of its just rights, and raising a Parliamentary commission above its authority; and that Mr. Pitt’s Bill, which actually strips the Throne of those main ensigns of Imperial authority; should have been universally admitted at least to have the merit of a due deference to the rights and person of the Sovereign!

  However, when people are pressed to explain what their meaning is — they are compelled to own, that when they speak of a fourth estate, and an overthrowing of the constitution, and an attack upon the prerogative, they do not mean that all this was done, or attempted by the Bill, but — that these things might have come to pass in consequence of it; — because, say they, a great political party having got possession of the Patronage of India for four years, they would instantly have become so strong, that the King could not easily have dismissed them; and so the prerogative would have been invaded. This party would also in time, by means of this Patronage, have been able to obtain a predominant party in Parliament; and so the constitution would have been destroyed. Now, to make any sense of the first objection, it is necessary to assert, as all violent people did, that, although the King she should have thought proper to have dismissed the Duke of Portland’s Administration, and had been equally desirous of changing the Indian Administration, yet that Lord Fitzwilliam, and his Board, could have held complete and independent possession of the Government of India for four years, in spight of his Royal wishes, and have applied all the Patronage and influence of their situation to the support of the exministers. This is literally what every man meant who meant any thing, or who had any sincere alarm on the subject. That the mere vulgar, or very ignorant people, should have adopted this notion, is not very stran
ge, considering the pains which were taken to circulate it; but that a person of LORD CAMDEN’S character, accustomed to consider laws with temper and deliberation, should now again have gravely detailed all this sort of argument in the House of Lords, have warned them against this fourth estate, this imperium in imperio asserting, as is reported,

  that had his Majesty thought proper, by virtue of his undoubted prerogative, to have dismissed Mr. Fox and his party from his service, we might have seen the King of Great Britain, and the King of Bengal, contending in Parliament for superiority,

  is a matter altogether surprising! — It is surprising, because the whole of the , if seriously urged, must arise from a perfect misapprehension of the Bill, and be founded upon the false and perverse notion before stated, that the Board appointed by it, was placed out of the reach, and above the controul, of the King’s Ministers for the time being. Two gentlemen of the House of Commons, of great ability and character, Mr. SCOTT and Mr. HARDING — confessed very candidly that they had been in a mistake with respect to this part of the Bill; they still, however, persisted to argue upon conclusions founded upon acknowledged error.

  What is the real case? — Mr. Fox’s Bill enacts,

  that the said Directors hereby appointed, or any three of them, shall have, use, possess, exercise, all and singular the powers and authorities which have been, at any time heretofore, vested in, or lawfully exercised by, the said Directors hereby discontinued, or Proprietors, or by the General Court of Proprietors of the said United Company, and all such farther and other powers and authorities, and under such directions, and subject to such limitations and restrictions as in this act, or in ANY OTHER ACT, the provisions where of ARE NOT HEREBY ALTERED OR REPEALED, are contained for the government and management of the said territorial possessions, revenues, and commerce, of the said United Company, or in any wise relative thereto. And further, that in all cases whatsoever, where any act, matter, or thing, is directed to be done or consented to, or any accounts or writings to be signed by the Directors hereby discontinued; such act, matter, or thing, shall, from and after the commercement of this act, be done or consented to; and such accounts or writings shall be signed by three of the Directors hereby appointed.

  Now, in order to understand what the real situation of the new Directors would have been, and what the extent of their powers, it should seem that the natural thing was, to examine what were the directions, limitations, and restrictions, not expressly repealed, under which they were left? In this case it would have appeared, — that Lord FITZWILLIAM and his Board were bound to communicate to his Majesty’s Ministers for the time being, an exact copy of all dispatches and letters received from India, or proposed to be sent thither, which should —

  ANY WAY RELATE to the REVENUES, or to the CIVIL and MILITARY affairs and GOVERNMENT of the said United Company.

  — That Lord FITZWILLIAM and his Board were bound

  to pay DUE OBEDIENCE to, and to be GOVERNED and BOUND by, such INSTRUCTIONS as they should receive FROM HIS MAJESTY, by one of his Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State, IN ALL THEIR CONDUCT, and TRANSACTIONS, (and in those of their Governors, Presidents, and Councils respectively,) with the COUNTRY POWERS in the East Indies, and also in regard to the LEVYING WAR and MAKING PEACE.

  — That Lord FITZWILLIAM and his Board had no means of using the credit of the East India Company for the relief of the Company’s pressing distresses,

  without the CONSENT and ORDER first had and obtained of the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Treasury for the time being.

  — That Lord FITZWILLIAM and his Board, in making provision for the defence of the possessions in the East Indies, were bound to act

  on the requisition, and under the inspection of the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Navy, and Office of Ordnance.

  — Upon the whole, it would have appeared that their Board was placed, in every important matter, under so strong a controul of the Ministers for the time being, and so wholly without the power of acting upon their own judgment or discretion, in all the more important objects of their institution, that no set of men, who were not content from the meanest motives, to hold the appearance of power upon the most abject conditions, could have remained in their Offices a week, with an Administration desirous to get rid of them. Let these plain facts be once understood, let the state of subordination of the new Directors to the King’s Government be fairly examined, and it will be apparent at once, — that without having recourse to a Parliamentary address, — the Duke of Portland’s Administration once dismissed, the resignation of Lord Fitzwilliam’s Board must have followed instantly; that is, if it was the object of the advisers of the Crown to change the Indian Government; — if otherwise, undoubtedly Lord Fitzwilliam and his associates were at liberty to continue in a laborious duty, without pay or emolument, and incapacitated from accepting any place of profit from the Crown, and to sacrifice their ease and their time under Ministers with whom they had no bond of union, nor habits of regard, from a desire to do good, and to effect the great purposes of their appointment — the reform of the abuses in India, and the re-establishment of the British character. To execute this trust faithfully, a rigid scrutiny into past misconduct, a severe oeconomy in future arrangements, a just, disinterested, and impartial management of Patronage, would have been among the first duties expected from them. While they so acted, if it was the King’s pleasure, his Ministers, whoever they were, might certainly have abstained from the exercise of the decisive controul they possessed over them; but then, wherein would have consisted the attack on the prerogative, or the danger of the Constitution? But supposing a different conduct to have been pursued by the Board; — that forgetting what they owed to their own characters, as well as to the duties of their station, they had perverted the powers of their trust, and had endeavoured to employ them solely to answer party purposes at home; — the remedy was at hand, and the first application of it must have been effectual.

  This being the fact, an objection of a different nature may, no doubt, be instantly made, namely, that as the King was to nominate to vacancies upon resignation, the Bill might have been used not to destroy, but to increase the power of the Crown; — the truth is, that it were much to be wished that this objection could be as easily answered as the other. MR. GRENVILLE was the only person connected with the present Administration, who argued the Bill upon this ground, at the time of its passing through the House of Commons. The fair answer, however, is, that there was every security taken against this worst of mischiefs, which the nature of the measure itself, and the urgent necessity which called for it, admitted of. The public had a pledge in the characters of the persons who framed that Bill, in the whole tenor of their political life, and in their recent and honest exertions to reduce the influence of the Crown, that it was not their intention at least, to deceive or delude them upon this subject. — If these Ministers were displaced, there was the same security in the character of the Indian Board, and in the very principle upon which it had been formed. If they too were obliged to abandon their situation, these securities certainly vanished; and the Crown might, for whatever term remained of the four years, have placed the powers given to the Parliamentary trustees, in the hands of its own creatures. But this could not have been done secretly or silently — not without serious discussion — not without the attention of the Public being immediately and forcibly drawn to the subject and to the characters and principles of the new Board; no new arrangement could pretend to claim the confidence of a Parliamentary nomination; Parliament must therefore have had the matter before them in a new point of view and have become accessory to the surrender, if they were to be surrendered, of those powers and that patronage to the Crown, — which all parties professed so much to dread to see lodged there. — Against such a conduct in Parliament there is certainly no remedy, nor ever will be.

  The only thing like an objection on this head remaining, is, that upon a supposition that his Majesty had been pleased to continue th
e Duke of Portland’s Administration for the term of four years, for which the India Board was appointed, the supposed good understanding between the Ministers and the new India Government, would have given them an opportunity of using the Company’s influence and Patronage, to make friends, and to create an interest which might have been of use to them at the end of that term. This undoubtedly might have been the case, but not without an abuse of their trust; and against this the public had certainly no security but in the character of the Board. In a comparison, however, of the two Bills, it is obvious to ask, — what security have the public against the same thing now? The means of Patronage and influence to all important purposes were before proved to be equal; and if Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas have for their object the attaching a powerful Indian interest, both at home and abroad, to themselves, who that observes and understands the measures daily pursued, both with regard to the Directors, the Proprietors, the Army, and the Governments and Councils abroad, can be so duped as not to own, that a very few years more must make them as formidable as Indian influence and attachment, so concentred and headed, can make any party.

  (G)

  “Mr. Dundas, with any two more Commissioners— “] IN the Committee upon Mr. Pitt’s Bill, it was moved that of the three Members of the Board of Controul who were empowered to sign dispatches relating to war, peace, &c.

  one should be the Secretary of State, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being.

  This was negatived upon a division, “Ayes 7, Noes 92!” Such was the confidence the House thought this board entitled to, independently of its connexion with the ostensible Ministers!

  (H)

  In speaking of Mr. Fox’s plan, it is a circumstance generally overlooked, that it consisted of two Bills brought into the House of Commons together, tho’ the Bill appointing the new Directors, only reached the House of Lords. The other — the Bill for the better Government of the Territorial Possessions, contained many excellent regulations for the relief and protection of the natives of India, and many real guards against the abuse of power, and the means of corrupt patronage in the hands of our Governors; — it also contained an undoubted testimony that it was not the intention of that Administration to make Parliament a ready asylum for those who might be accused of delinquencies abroad, or to use the influence of their situation to create an Indian interest for their support.