lations, or rewards; they even had the free and gratuitous style of presents. The receivers contended, that they were mere gratuities given for service done, or mere tokens of affection and gratitude to the parties. They may give them what names they please, and your lordships will think of them what you please. But they were the donations of misery to power, the gifts of sufferers to the oppressours; and consequently, where they prevailed, they left no certain property or fixed situation to any man in India, from the highest to the lowest.

The court of directors sent out orders to enlarge the servants' covenants, with new and severe clauses, strongly prohibiting the practice of receiving presents. Lord Clive himself had been a large receiver of them. Yet, as it was in the moment of a revolution, which gave them all they possessed, the company would hear no more of it. They sent him out to reform-whether they chose well or ill, does not signify. I think, upon the whole, they chose well; because his name and authority could do much. They sent him out to redress the grievances of that country, and it was necessary he should be well armed for that service. They sent him out with such powers as no servant of the company ever held before. I would not be understood here in my own character, much less in the delegated character, in which I stand, to contend for any man in the totality of his conduet. Perhaps in some of his measures he was mistaken, and in some of his acts reprehensible but justice obliges me to say, that the plan, which he formed, and the course, which he pursued, were in general great and well imagined; that he laid great foundations, if they had been properly built upon. For, in the first place, he composed all the neighbouring countries, torn to pieces, by the wars of Cossim Ally, and quieted the apprehensions, raised by the opinion of the boundless ambition of England. He took strong measures to put an end to a great many of the abuses, that prevailed in the country subject to the company. He then proceeded to the upper provinces; and formed a plan, which, for a military man, has great civil and political merit. He put a bound to the aspiring spirit

:

of the company's servants; he limited its conquests; he prescribed bounds to its ambition. First (says he) quiet the minds of the country; what you have obtained, regulate; make it known to India, that you resolve to acquire no more. On this solid plan he fixed every prince, that was concerned in the preceding wars, on the one side and on the other, in an happy and easy settlement. He restor

ed Shuja ul Dowla, who had been driven from his dominions by the military arm of Great Britain, to the rank of vizier, and to the dominion of the territories of Oude. With a generosity, that astonished all Asia, he reinstated this expelled enemy of his nation peaceably upon his throne. And this act of politick generosity did more towards quieting the minds of the people of Asia than all the terrour, great as it was, of the English arms. At the same time lord Clive, generous to all, took peculiar care of our friends and allies. He took care of Bulwant Sing, the great rajah of Benares, who had taken our part in the war. He secured him from the revenge of Shuja ul Dowla. The Mogul had granted us the superiority over Bulwant Sing. Lord Clive re-established him in a secure, easy, independency. He confirmed him, under the British guarantee, in the rich principality, which he held.

The Mogul, the head of the Mussulman religion in India, and of the Indian empire, a head honoured and esteemed even in its ruins, he procured to be recognized by all the persons, that were connected with his empire. The rents, that ought to be paid to the vizier of the empire, he gave to the vizeret. Thus, our alliances were cemented; our enemies were reconciled; all Asia was conciliated by our settlement with the king.

To that unhappy fugitive king, driven from place to place, the sport of fortune, now an emperour, and now a prisoner, prayed for in every mosque, in which his authority was conspired against, one day opposed by the coin struck in his name, and the other day sold for it, to this descendant of Tamerlane he allotted, with a decent share of royal dignity,. an honourable fixed residence, where he might be useful, and could not be dangerous.

As to the Bengal provinces, he did not take for the company the vice-royalty, as Mr. Holwell would have persuaded, almost forced, the company to do; but, to satisfy the prejudices of the Mahomedans, the country was left in the hands nominally of the soubah or viceroy, who was to administer the criminal justice and the exteriour forms of royalty. He obtained from the sovereign the dewannee. This is the great act of the constitutional entrance of the company into the body politick of India. It gave to the settlement of Bengal a fixed constitutional form, with a legal title acknowledged and recognized now for the first time by all the natural powers of the country, because it arose from the charter of the undoubted sovereign. The dewannee, or high-stewardship, gave to the company the collection. and management of the revenue; and in this modest and civil character they appeared not the oppressours but the protectors of the people. This scheme had all the real power, without any invidious appearance of it; it gave them the revenue, without the parade of sovereignty. On this double foundation the government was happily settled. The minds of the natives were quieted. The company's territories and views were circumscribed. The arm of force was put out of sight. The imperial name covered every thing. The power of the purse was in the company. The power of the sword was in they contracted for the maintenance of the company had a revenue of a million and a half. The nabob had indeed fallen from any real and effective power, yet the dignity of the court was maintained; the prejudices and interests of the Mahomedans, and particularly of their nobility, who had suffered more by this great revolution even than the old inhabitants of the country, were consulted for by this plan a revenue of 500,000l. was settled on the viceroyalty, which was thus enabled to provide in some measure for those great families. The company likewise, by this plan, in order to enjoy their revenues securely, and to avoid envy and murmur, put them into the hands of Mahomed Reza Cawn, whom lord Clive found in the management of affairs, and did not displace; and he was now made deputy

hand of the

effect so, as army. The

steward to the company, as he had been before lieutenantviceroy to the nabob. A British resident at Moorshedabad was established as a controul. The company exercised their power over the revenue in the first instance, through the natives, but the British resident was in reality the great

mover.

If ever this nation stood in a situation of glory throughout Asia, it was in that moment. But as I have said, some material errours and mistakes were committed. After the formation of this plan, Lord Clive unfortunately did not stay long enough in the country to give consistency to the measures of reformation he had undertaken, but rapidly returned to England; and after his departure the government, that continued, had not vigour, or authority, to support the settlement then made; and considerable abuses began to prevail in every quarter. Another capital period in our history here commences. Those, who succeeded (though I believe one of them was one of the honestest men, that ever served the company, I mean governour Verelst) had not weight enough to poise the system of the service, and consequently many abuses and grievances again prevailed— supervisors were appointed to every district, as a check on the native collectors, and to report every abuse, as it should arise. But they, who were appointed to redress grievances, were themselves accused of being guilty of them. However the disorders were not of that violent kind, which preceded Mr. Hastings's departure, nor such as followed his return no mercenary wars-no mercenary revolutions, no extirpation of nations, no violent convulsions in the revenue, no subversion of antient houses, no general sales of any descriptions of men-none of these, but certainly such grievances as made it necessary for the company to send out another commission in 1769, with instructions pointing out the chief abuses. It was composed of Mr. Vansittart, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Scrafton. The unfortunate end of that commission is known to all the world: but I mention it in order to state, that the receipt of presents was considered as one of the grievances, which then prevailed in India; and that the supervisors under that commission were ordered upon no

account whatever to take presents. Upon the unfortunate catastrophe, which happened, the company was preparing to send out another for the rectification of these grievances, when parliament thought it necessary to supersede that commission to take the matter into their own hands, and to appoint another commission in a parliamentary way (of which Mr. Hastings was one) for the better government of that country. Mr. Hastings, as I must mention to your lordships, soon after the deposition and restoration of Jaffier Ally Cawn, and before Lord Clive arrived, quitted for a while the scene, in which he had been so mischievously employed, and returned to England to strengthen himself by those cabals, which again sent him out with new authority to pursue the courses, which were the natural sequel to his former proceedings. He returned to India with great power indeed; first, to a seat in council at Fort St. George, and from thence to succeed to the presidency of Fort William. On him the company placed their chief reliance. Happy had it been for them, happy for India, and for England, if his conduct had been such as to spare your lordships and the Commons the exhibition of this day.

When this government, with Mr. Hastings at the head of it, was settled, Moorshedabad did still continue the seat of the native government, and of all the collections. Here the company was not satisfied with placing a resident at the durbar, which was the first step to our assuming the government in that country. These steps must be traced by your lordships, for I should never have given you this trouble, if it was not necessary to possess you clearly of the several progressive steps, by which the company's government came to be established and to supersede the native. The next step was the appointment of supervisors in every province, to oversee the native collector. The third was to establish a general council of revenue at Moorshedabad, to superintend the great steward Mahomed Reza Cawn. In 1772 that council by Mr. Hastings was overturned, and the whole management of the revenue brought to Calcutta. Mahomed Reza Cawn, by orders of the company, was turned out of all his offices, and turned out for reasons and prin13

VOL. VII.