the Company's petition; and the leader, Mr. Rous, was heard, with evidence, for the space, it is said, of seven hours; at the expiration of which an adjournment was prayed for, as some of the witnesses were not present. The division, the first which had occurred during the session, was ominous; the ministers were in a minority of eight*. On the following day the evidence closed, and the other counsel addressed the Houset. On the motion to commit the bill, a long debate took place; the topics of unconstitutional influence, violation of charters, bankruptcy of the Company, inefficiency of their government, and malversation of Mr. Hastings, were all discussed at great length, with undiminished zeal, but no novelty. The defenders of the measure complained, in a manner which shewed abated confidence, of the pains which, with too much success, had been taken to create prejudice against it; while several lords on the opposite side declared that, uninvited and unsolicited, struck only with the faults which were exhibited by a perusal of the bill, they had felt it a duty to oppose its further progress. On a division, the bill was rejected by a majority of nineteen‡. Such was the fate of this extraordinary measure, struggling vainly against these evils, we have nothing left but the satisfaction of recording our names to posterity, as those who resisted the whole of this iniquitous system; as men who had no share in betraying to blind prejudices or sordid interest every thing that has hitherto been held sacred in this country.-The passages in Italics are adopted verbatim, and form almost the whole matter of the City's petition. See Debates, vol. xxiv. p. 144. 66 6 Contents 69, Proxies 18-87. Non-contents 57, Proxies 22–79. Mr. Hardinge alluded, in these terms, to the expression of the Attorneygeneral, already noticed, "As to the libel, for such it is, which intimates' that a Charter has been called a parchment with a seal dangling at the bottom of it,' "what would I have given that it had been so called in the House of Commons; "because there, a high character of independence and political as well as personal "honour have seated the Whig Attorney-general of the day, who would have "crushed the levity of that flippant expression with all the weight of his eloquence and public spirit.' The principal speakers for the commitment of the bill were the Duke of Manchester, Earls Carlisle, Fitzwilliam, Sandwich, and Derby, and Lord Rawdon. Against it, the Duke of Richmond, Earls Gower, Coventry, and Radnor, Lords Walsingham, Camden, King, and Gage, and the Bishop of Salisbury. The numbers, on the division, were, contents, 57, proxies, 19, 76; non-contents, 75, proxies, 20, 95. It was observed that Lord Stormont, President of the Council, and Lord Mansfield, Speaker of the House of Lords, who had, on the 15th, voted against the adjournment, now voted against the commitment of the bill, although they took no part in either debate. It was generally understood that these two Lords had, from the first, declared themselves adverse to it. See Tomline's Life of Pitt, vol. i. p. 107. and, prabably, it occasioned no great surprise, although it occasioned much irritation and anger. Mr. Fox, when he introduced the bill, said, he was placing himself in a state of much responsibility, and incurring great risk. He described the proceedings of the opposition as a double game, in which they were endeavouring to injure him through two channels at the same time; through a certain great quarter, and through the people*; and Mr. Erskine concluded a panegyric on Mr. Fox in these words: "Let my right honourable friend go on with firmness, and risk his office at every step, " and I will combat at his side, at the hazard of every prospect of ambition. Let him rely on his own "manly, superior understanding, and the integrity of "his heart, and I will stand for ever by him, or be "ready to sink with him.” 66 66 CHAP. LV. 1783. House of Lords. While the bill was pending, rumours were circu- Interference of lated that the King had expressed a strong repugnance the King. to it, and had said to Earl Temple that he should consider those who supported it, not only not as his friends, but as his enemies; and that, upon his full authority, the Noble Earl might express this sentiment in terms still stronger, and more to the purpose, if he could supply them. Such was the shape which the rumour ́ ultimately assumed; but, at first, it was vague, indirect, and complicated: it was mentioned to the House of 15th, menLords by the Duke of Portland, in the debate on the tioned in the adjournment. The Duke of Richmond read, from a newspaper, an involved series of rumours supposed to be in circulation respecting the King's conduct to his ministers, and his communication with Earl Temple, all which the writer, adding his own reasons, pretended to contradict, from the best authority. Were these, his Grace asked, the reports which the Duke of Portland intended to investigate? He would inform his Grace, if he did not already know it, who was the author of them; it was some hireling fellow, equally undeserving of his Grace's patronage and their Lordships' notice. Earl Temple acknowledged that his * December 1st. Debates, vol. xxiii. p. 1427. CHAP. 1783. Motion in the House of Commons. 17th. Debate. Majesty had recently honoured him with a conference; it was a matter which he neither wished to deny or conceal. It was his privilege, as an hereditary counsellor, to advise the Crown; what particular advice he had given, he would not then disclose; but it was unfriendly to the principle and object of the Bill. If these were the rumours to which the noble Duke alluded, he gloried in being the cause of them. At the time of this discussion, the House of Commons had adjourned for two days, in consequence of a death in the Speaker's family; but, immediately on its re-assembling, and, while the India Bill was undergoing its final investigation in the other House, Mr. Baker adverted to the report of a conversation between a great personage and a noble lord, which had for its object to create an influence adverse to the bill. An assertion that the King was an enemy to any particular measure under consideration, could only tend to prevent persons from voting according to their judgment, and to influence their votes solely by their hopes or fears. He, therefore, moved a declaration, that to report any opinion of his Majesty, on any proceeding depending in Parliament, with a view to influence the votes of the members, is a high crime and misdemeanor; and for a Committee on the state of the nation. Earl Nugent, Mr. Pitt, and Lord Mahon, combated the first resolution, on the grounds that it tended to annihilate sovereignty, and to create discord between the two Houses; that it had neither foundation nor object; contained no specific charge; was directed to no decisive issue; and was founded on no positive facts, either proved or stated. It was below the dignity of Parliament to notice fugitive newspaper reports, and Mr. Pitt moved the order of the day. Lord North and Mr. Grenville having each made a short speech, the former, with his usual candour, denying the existence of any secret influence while he was in office, Mr. Fox declared he never before felt so much anxiety, never addressed the House under such a pressure of impending mischief, never trembled so much for public liberty. This rumour had been treated with unbecoming levity. It was not a mere newspaper report or verbal surmise, but something much stronger and more serious: a written record would be produced. This letter (and the right honourable member produced one from which he read the supposed communication above stated)—this letter is not to be put in the balance with the lie of the day. In terms of passionate declamation he deplored the condition of Parliament, robbed of its rights with a menace of immediate destruction before it. He spoke with bitter scorn of the majority by which the bill was likely to be lost; a majority of bed-chamber lords. A secret influence, he said, prevailed not only in this instance, but during the whole reign, and he pretty plainly indicated Mr. Jenkinson as its present agent. In conclusion, he contrasted his own public conduct with that of Mr. Pitt: "The people of England," he said, “have made me what I am. At their "instance I have been called to a station in their ser"vice, and perhaps it would not be treating them "well hastily to abandon the post to which they have "generously raised me." The honourable gentleman, he said, was grasping at place on very different grounds. He was not called to it by, but in defiance of, a majority of that House, and stood forth the advocate of the secret influence, and a candidate for its benefits. 66 Mr. Jenkinson denied ever having given advice to his sovereign unbecoming his character and station. Mr. Grenville said, he had taken down the words cited in the debate, and shewn them to Earl Temple, who distinctly denied having used them. But Mr. Fox replied, that such a denial could be of no avail, unless the noble lord would declare what the precise words were. Would he venture to say, or would any man say for him, that he had not used words calculated to influence the minds of men by means of the royal name*? * On the subject of this rumour and the debates on it, and on the ministry and affairs of the time in general, see Recollections by John Nicholl, Esq., vol. ii. p. 30. СНАР. LV. 1783. CHAP. LV. The House having divided, giving the minister nearly his usual majority of two to one*, Mr. Erskine moved that it was necessary and particularly incumMr. Erskine's bent on the House to pursue, with unremitting at 1783. motion. The ministers tention, the consideration of a suitable remedy for the abuses which had prevailed in the government of the British dominions in the East Indies, and that they would consider as an enemy to the country any person who should presume to advise his Majesty to prevent, or in any manner interrupt, the discharge of this important duty. Strangers being excluded, the debate has not been detailed; but it appears that, after Sir Henry Houghton had moved, as an amendment, the omission of the latter part of the resolution, the division was, in the customary degree, favourable to the ministerst. Under all the circumstances, it might have been do not resign. expected that ministers would resign and make a merit of refusing to appear as the government, when their favorite measure had been rejected by the House of Lords, and the majority which rejected it was asserted by them to have been procured by an undue exertion of royal influence. They did not adopt this mode of conduct, and perhaps the minds of their leaders were distracted by the discordant opinions of others. Thus Mr. Fox, in one part of his speech, said, while all my best-meant and best-concerted plans are under the control of a villainous whisper, and the most valuable consequences, which I flattered myself must have resulted from my honest and indefatigable industry, are thus defeated by secret influence, it is impossible to continue in office any longer, either with honour to myself or advantage to the public. In another part, he seemed to consider it unworthy thus to relinquish office, and bow down under an ascendancy shamefully acquired. This critical moment, he said, was eagerly embraced to goad him from office, to upbraid him with the meanness of not taking the hint; but he arrogated no pomp from the formality of resignation. The present was one of those singular junctures when it be |
