F

pounds each. Great abuse and waste of stationary wares was also practised in the houses of ministers, servants generally considering it as a part of their duty to contrive ingenious means for using more than their masters, and generally wasting ten times as much as they used. If then the board which possessed all the powers of controul, and which he doubted not had exercised those powers with becoming vigilance, viz. the board of treasury, were liable to such gross imposition, he had a right to suspect that in the subordinate offices, offices possessed of less power, and not so likely to exercise any check upon abuses of this nature, similar abuses prevailed to a considerable degree. He meant to propose allowing a certain fixed sum for stationary wares to each office, as the best, and indeed the only practicable means of correcting the abuse. Having amplified extremely on this and the other points of the bill, Mr. Pitt declared, he had no doubt but the plan of reform contained in the bill would save the public forty thousand a-year at the least; he therefore hoped, that it would not only be the sense of the House that it should go to a committee, but that it should pass this session.

Before he sat down, he took notice of Lord North's expression in a former debate, that not a trace was to be found in the treasury, indicating a single step towards that glorious fabric (as the noble lord had been pleased to term it) of reform and economy held out in the King's speech. That speech had been often mentioned in the course of the session, and repeatedly charged with being full of vaunts and promises, never intended to be kept or fulfilled. The expression he had just alluded to of the noble lord, struck him as so very strong a one at the time, that he thought it necessary to take it down in writing, and he was determined, at the moment, to bring it to the test at some fit opportunity. As it was materially connected with the subject of the bill then under discussion, he knew of no fitter opportunity than the present. In order to bring the matter fairly within view, he declared he would read the promises of the speech on the opening of the session, paragraph by paragraph. He did so; and then urged the various measures tending towards a plan of reform

begun by the late ministry, as well those brought before parliament, as those not sufficiently matured for the inspection of the House of Commons, ere the late ministry went out. He referred to Lord North and the present chancellor of the exchequer, as witnesses, whose evidence he was entitled to upon different topics in this part of his argument. He appealed to them whether there were not in the treasury, very laborious and accurate materials, drawn up at the instance of the last board of treasury, upon the mint, the royal forests, and a variety of other subjects alluded to in the King's speech, as intended to be brought forward in parliament as matters of reform? And after going through the whole, he complimented Lord North on his well-known candour on all occasions; whence he was induced to flatter himself the noble lord would do him the justice to acknowledge he had rashly made his assertion, and that, so far from there being no trace to be found in the treasury of that glorious fabric to which he had alluded, there were the foundations laid for the whole building, and that its basis was obviously intended to be most solid and substantial. Mr. Pitt said, this latter part of his subject had been touched upon in that House, and occasioned much warmth and asperity; he trusted that he had now put fairly to issue, and stated it in so plain and precise a way, that it could hereafter become only a topic of cool and dispassionate discussion. He added other remarks, and at length wound up his argument with declaring, that it had afforded him some satisfaction to have had an opportunity of offering an explanation of the bill to the House; not doubting but that, after the bill had been explained, the House would acknowledge its importance, and immediately proceed to give it that consideration to which such a bill was undoubtedly entitled.

it

The motion was agreed to, and the House in a committee went through the bill.

November 27. 1783.

Mr. Fox's East India bill was this day read a second time. The petitions against it from the courts of proprietors and directors of the East India Company were then read, and their counsel were heard at the bar - Mr. Rous and Mr. Dallas for the proprietors, and Mr. Hardinge and Mr. Plomer for the court of directors. As soon as they had withdrawn, Mr. Fox, in a long and able speech, enforcing the necessity of parliamentary interference in the affairs of the Company, moved," that the bill be committed."

MR.PITT began with remarking to the House the peculiar situation in which he found himself placed by the progress and present state of this question. I have, said he, from the commencement of it, by every exertion in my power, summoned the attention of the House, and of the country in general, to the importance and dangerous consequences of the measure now proposed. I have pledged myself to the House, and to the world at large, to point out the dreadful tendency of this bill on every thing dear and sacred to Englishmen ; to prove its inimical influence on the constitution and liberties of this country; and to establish, by undeniable evidence, the false and pernicious principles on which it is founded. These particulars require time and deliberation, which the violent and indecent precipitancy of this business virtually proscribes. However, it is impossible to regard the very face of the bill, without feeling the strongest repugnance at its success. I desire the House to take notice, that the ground of necessity upon which the bill was originally declared to have been introduced, is now changed: that necessity no longer rests on the simple, clear, and obvious proposition, the bankruptcy of the East India company, but is this day placed on a still weaker foundation, though a foundation infinitely more fallacious, upon the temporary distress of the company. Is that a fit plea to warrant the passing of a bill, which openly professes a daring violation of the chartered rights of the company, and proceeds to an immediate confiscation of all their property? Ought the House to be satisfied with it, even if proved beyond the possibility of question? I trust they will not; I trust the House has too much regard for their own honour and dignity,

too scrupulous an attention to justice, and too conscientious an adherence to their duty to their constituents, to support the minister in one of the boldest, most unprecedented, most desperate and alarming attempts at the exercise of tyranny, that ever disgraced the annals of this or any other country.

The right honourable gentleman*, whose eloquence and whose abilities would lend a grace to deformity, has appealed to your passions, and pressed home to your hearts the distressed situation of the unhappy natives of India: a situation which every man must deeply deplore, and anxiously wish to relieve. But ought the right honourable gentleman to proceed to the protection of the oppressed abroad, by enforcing the most unparalleled oppression at home? Is the relief to be administered in Asia, to be grounded on violence and injustice in Europe? Let the House turn their eyes to the very extraordinary manner in which the very extraordinary bill, now under consideration, has been introduced. When the right honourable gentleman opened it to the House on Tuesday se'nnight, he urged the indispensable necessity of the measure as its only justification; and, in order to carry that necessity to the conviction of the House, he gave such a statement of the company's affairs, as to convey to the ideas of almost every gentleman present that the company were bankrupts to the amount of eight millions. [Mr. Fox here shook his head.] I am ready to admit that the right honourable gentleman did not expressly say so; but I shall still contend, that the manner in which the right honourable gentleman stated their affairs, conveyed that idea. It has been entertained by most of those who heard the right honorable gentleman, it has been entertained by the public, and it has been entertained by the company.

The right honourable gentleman has himself confessed, he made several omissions in his former statement of the company's affairs. Omissions he certainly has made; omissions, gross, palpable, and prodigious. What is the consequence? the company flatly deny the right honourable gentleman's statement. They prepare an

account of the true state of their affairs; they produce it at the bar of the House; they establish its authenticity by the concurrent testimony of their accountant and auditor. What happens then? The right honourable gentleman declares it is incumbent on him to clear his own character, and that can only be done by refuting and falsifying the company's statement of their affairs to the enormous amount of twelve millions. Arduous and difficult as this task is, the right honourable gentleman enters upon it with a degree of spirit peculiar to the boldness of his character. He acknowledges that the company's paper must be deprived of its credit some how or other; and he proceeds in a most extraordinary manner to effect a purpose he had just told you was so necessary to himself. The right honourable gentleman ran through the account with the volubility that rendered comprehension difficult, and detection almost impossible. I attempted to follow himthrough his commentary; and though it was impossible upon first hearing such a variety of assertions, to investigate the truth of all of them, and completely refute their fallacy, I will undertake to shew that the right honourable gentleman has unfairly reasoned upon some of the articles, grossly misrepresented others, and wholly passed by considerations material to be adverted to, in order to ascertain what is the true state of the company's affairs.

Mr. Pitt then entered into a revision of the credit side of the company's statement, and endeavoured to overturn Mr. Fox's objections to some of the articles, and to defeat the force of his ob servations upon others. He justified the company's giving them selves credit for 4,200,0007. as the debt from governiment, on the ground that as they had advanced the full principal of the sum tó government, they had a right to give themselves credit for the whole of it; and the moré especially, as on the other side, they made themselves debtors for 2,992,4401. borrowed, to enable them to make the loan to government of 4,200,000. The money due for the subsistence of prisoners in a former war, for the expenses of the expedition against Manilla, and for hospital expenses, he also reasoned upon, to shew that the company were not to blame for inserting them on the credit side of their account. The right