but every advertisement it contained was a source of benefit to the revenue, nay, many paragraphs paid duty. Perhaps there was not an instance of any one object that paid so much of its entire receipts into the public coffers!

Mr. Sheridan raised a smile in the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he talked of paragraphs paying duty, and Mr. Pitt asked across the table, if Mac Ossian's manufacture paid duty.

JULY 26.

AMENDMENTS UPON INDIA BILLS.

MR. SHERIDAN remarked, that if gentlemen on either side of the house went from the question, and were only mindful of charging persons in India with peculation, and defending their own conduct; or proving that, although they had been delinquents, there were still greater than themselves, there would be no end to the business; and the house would refer the hearing to a new judicature, as well as their trial;—therefore he hoped to hear no more deviations; but that gentlemen would stick to the question, and point out their objections to the bill, and not to the persons that had been the occasion of its being made. He then noticed, that the bill had been so altered, so mangled, and so transformed, that it did not appear like the same bill. Indeed, it ought not to be called an alteration, but a total transformation, different both in object and principle to the former bill; and the silence of the two right honourable gentlemen (Pitt and Dundas) was to him proof that they saw the necessity of a re-commitment. But if that was not, the very appearance in the first page of the new printed bill was ;-for there, by the references, it was plain that twenty-one new clauses were added; which were to be known by the letters A B CDEFGHIK LMNOPQRSTVW; therefore it was to be hoped some gentleman would add three more clauses for X Y Z, to make the alphabet complete; which would then serve as a horn-book for the present ministry. The old clauses, now left out, were referred to, and known by being in black letter at the bottom of the column; where, to be sure, they stood in mourning for the folly of their parents; and pointed out the slovenly manner in which the bill was originally drawn; notwithstanding the right honourable gentleman (Sir G. Howard) in the red riband, had praised it for its accuracy; accurate it

could not be, when twenty-one new clauses were added, and the rest totally altered in the committee. As a proof that it was necessary to re-commit the bill for the honour of the house, he would convince them by reading a part of one of the clauses ; wherein a dead person was to give an account how he came by certain papers. He then read, He then read, "That papers, containing the account of their effects, were to be sent to His Majesty, in his Court of King's Bench, and under the seals of two or more judges of the said supreme court; and one or more of the judges of the said supreme court shall deliver the same to the agent or agents of the party or parties requiring the same; which said agent or agents (or, in case of his or their death, the person into whose hands the same shall come) shall deliver the same to one of the clerks in court, of His Majesty's Court of King's Bench, in the public office; and make oath, that he received the same from the hands of one or more of the judges of such court in India; or, if such agent be dead, in what manner the same came into his hands."

The honourable gentleman read a variety of other clauses; and pointed out wherein they were worded so as, in his mind, to be perfect nonsense; and declared, that he never would consent to suffer the first principles of the constitution to be violated, to answer any expediency whatever. But probably the reason of instituting a new court of judicature was to give employment to the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Dundas) and some others; whose places, by their own accounts, were sinecures ;-therefore it was on the principle that mothers gave playthings to their children, merely to keep them out of mischief. If so, he had no objection; and made not the least doubt but strict justice would be done, as their integrity had been tried on other occasions. He particularly pointed out the absurdity of a clause relative to the secret council; and remarked, that the whole bill evidently appeared as if the two contending parties, the crown and company, had endeavoured to over-reach each other. The company remonstrated against the first bill, because orders were to be transmitted to India without their consent; and insisted on the right of some of their directors being acquainted with all matters before they were dispatched. To please them, the right honourable gentleman had suffered them to have a secret committee of three directors; but the company

were not a bit nearer;-for those three directors were sworn not to divulge any thing done in council;-of course they must cut a ridiculous figure; for they might be present at a court of directors, and see and hear measures carrying on, and regulations making, diametrically opposite to what they knew had been determined on in council; and by their oaths were debarred from giving any other information than a nod or a wink across the table, or a grave shake of the head, to intimate they knew something which they dare not divulge. He then pointed out the clause which obliges the company to transmit all papers to the Secretary of State and Council for their approbation, previous to their being sent to India; and remarked on the difficulty that would accrue from the alterations made by each party. But what was curious was the wording of the next clause to it; which began, "For the better dispatch of business, &c. be it enacted, that in case of any alteration being made, the company might be at liberty to send it back again to be reconsidered and in case of their not meeting with redress, then they might be at liberty to refer to the King in council;" who, in fact, was the same tribunal they had appealed to twice before. Surely that was a curious method of dispatch, to keep sending backwards and forwards a paper alternately; and which might never be approved.

He dwelt much on the rapacity, and other improper conduct of Mr. Hastings, being all forgiven in the present bill. But that, he said, was a matter which Mr. Hastings's India parliamentary interest, no doubt, insisted upon; and which a minister, depending on such men, did not dare to refuse. He adverted to the new court of judicature; which took away from British subjects the trial by jury; and in so doing overturned the principle of the constitution. Here he was remarkably severe on the minister; who, under colour of saving the charters of a company of men that all the world allowed to have acted dishonestly, subverted the very foundation stone on which the great Magna Charta of their country was built; and did a deed which paved the direct road to the establishment of arbitrary power in all the dominions of Great Britain. This, he said, was modern popularity. He attacked the minister for daring to say that this bill was acceptable in India. This he argued on two points: if it was agreeable to the delinquents, it

certainly must be a bad bill; and on that point the minister could gain no credit. The fact, however, was not so; and he was happy to inform the house, that the minister mis-stated the matter, when he said, the bill was acceptable in the East. In arguments of this kind there was nothing so strong as evidence; and therefore against Mr. Pitt's ipse dixit, that this bill was universally liked all over India, where it seems its original principles and clauses were fabricated; he only referred the house to a truth not to be contradicted, which lay upon the table-a petition from six hundred and forty-eight of the principal persons residing in Bengal; beseeching the house, by all that they held most dear, not to violate the constitution, by so dreadful an act of parliament, as one for taking away from British subjects the right of being tried by their peers. This pure spirit of rectifying the ancient chartered rights of the people, would, no doubt, extend itself in time to every part of the English dominions; and trial by jury be taken away from all His Majesty's subjects in every part of the globe. Here the honourable gentleman called for the attention of the house. He said, the India phalanx, those Swiss guards of Eastern peculation, had openly declared, that they would overthrow the last administration; and by doing so, teach another how to value and respect their friendship ;-nay, these Eastern lords went so far as to declare, that the depravity of this country was now arrived to such a pitch, that they could carry any point by money. After a variety of other arguments, he concluded with a reliance on the candour of the minister, that he would re-commit the bill, that it might be divested of its slovenly dress, and made conformable to common sense-even if the principles were to be divested of common justice.

The amendment being carried without a division,

Mr. Sheridan then said, that as the house had determined not to send the bill back to the committee, he could not now proceed to those alterations which he would have thought it his duty to have offered, if it had been re-committed: he declared his object was not to gain time; but in reality to move such amendments as to him appeared absolutely necessary. The right honourable gentleman had said, that the East-India Company had assigned good reasons for the alterations that they had required: he made no doubt but they must have assigned very convincing rea

sons indeed to make the right honourable gentleman give up almost the entire principle of his bill, and bring it out of the committee as different from what it was when it was committed, as an effectual differed from an ineffectual control; indeed the right honourable member was in the right for saying, that he had had good reasons for the alterations. He had only to look about him, and he might see himself surrounded with reasons strong enough in all conscience to make him stand well with persons who had overturned the administration, and were powerful enough to make their successors feel they were mere creatures of their own hands, which, as they set them up, might pull them down again. It was, therefore, very prudent and politic in the right honourable member to call the bill brought in by his right honourable friend a bill for establishing a system of plunder and despotism; such hard words would please the committee beyond description; and secure to the right honourable member their support, and consequently his present situation.

AUGUST 2.

REPORT FROM THE COMMITTEE OF THE DIVIDEND BILL.

An amendment was moved that the East India Company should pay five per cent. on their debt.

MR. SHERIDAN said, he trusted the minister would not be followed so implicitly upon the question that night, as he had been two days before. Gentlemen saw more clearly its quality, and he believed, they would not choose to countenance a proceeding so unbecoming. That in private life, a man might upon occasion find it convenient or necessary to conceal his embarrassments by the gaiety, or even the splendour of his appearance; that he might dart into some expenses for the sake of maintaining a declining credit he admitted. A private man, if he had future prospects of retrieving himself, might, perhaps, without much imputation do this. But was the same conduct to be permitted to a state; or was a nation like ours, which stood on the purity and clearness of her credit, to give her countenance and sanction to such a manœuvre? What might not be the conclusions drawn from such conduct? Take the question in another view. At a time when we were, through the most urgent state of necessity, laying heavy burdens on the