reputation, and since the sad journey to Varennes he had been an exile from his country.  And, though again in 1803 Pitt once more trusted for success on land to Continental alliances, not only does he deserve admiration for the diplomatic talent with which he united Austria, Prussia, and Russia against France, but it can hardly be doubted that confederacy would have been triumphant, had not the incompetent vanity of Alexander ruined all its prospects by his rash disregard at Austerlitz of the experienced warnings of his own staff.[111]

The new form of government which he established for India, and to which allusion has been made, has lost the greater part of its importance in the eyes of the present generation, from the more-recent abolition of the political authority of the East India Company, though of some of the principles which he avowed he had taken for his guides it is worth while to preserve the record; with such clearness, as well as statesman-like wisdom, do they affirm the objects which every one should keep in view who applies himself to legislation for distant dependencies where the privileges and interests of foreign fellow-subjects are to be regarded with as jealous a solicitude as those of our own countrymen.  These objects may be briefly described as being the reconciling the vested and chartered interests of the Company with the legitimate authority of the King’s government; for, though Pitt admitted that “state necessity” might occasionally be allowed as a valid reason for the abrogation of a charter, he affirmed that nothing short of such absolute necessity could excuse such a measure, and he relied on the previous history of the Company to prove the fallacy of an observation that had sometimes been made, that commercial companies could not govern empires.  There were three interests to be considered:  that of the native Indians, that of the Company, and that of this country; and the problem to be solved was, “how to do the most good to India and to the East India Company with the least injury to our constitution.”  Some of his remarks contained unavoidable allusions to Fox’s bill of the previous year, since some of the provisions of his bill were entirely opposite to those which Fox had framed, the most material point of difference being the character of the Board of Control which he proposed to establish.  Fox, as has been seen, had proposed to make the commissioners to be appointed under his bill irremovable for several years, whatever changes might take place in the home government; an arrangement which the opposers of the bill suspected of being designed to prevent any change in the home government from taking place.  Pitt, on the other hand, laid down as one of his leading principles that “the board could not be permanent, that it must be subordinate to the administration of the day, and that permanency would be in itself a deviation from the principles of the constitution, and would involve the board in contradictions to the