This bill, and those connected with it, are intended to form the Magna Charta of Hindostan.  Whatever the Treaty of Westphalia is to the liberty of the princes and free cities of the Empire, and to the three religions there professed,—­whatever the Great Charter, the Statute of Tallage, the Petition of Right, and the Declaration of Right are to Great Britain, these bills are to the people of India.  Of this benefit I am certain their condition is capable:  and when I know that they are capable of more, my vote shall most assuredly be for our giving to the full extent of their capacity of receiving; and no charter of dominion shall stand as a bar in my way to their charter of safety and protection.

The strong admission I have made of the Company’s rights (I am conscious of it) binds me to do a great deal.  I do not presume to condemn those who argue a priori against the propriety of leaving such extensive political powers in the hands of a company of merchants.  I know much is, and much more may be, said against such a system.  But, with my particular ideas and sentiments, I cannot go that way to work.  I feel an insuperable reluctance in giving my hand to destroy any established institution of government, upon a theory, however plausible it may be.  My experience in life teaches me nothing clear upon the subject.  I have known merchants with the sentiments and the abilities of great statesmen, and I have seen persons in the rank of statesmen with the conceptions and character of peddlers.  Indeed, my observation has furnished me with nothing that is to be found in any habits of life or education, which tends wholly to disqualify men for the functions of government, but that by which the power of exercising those functions is very frequently obtained:  I mean a spirit and habits of low cabal and intrigue; which I have never, in one instance, seen united with a capacity for sound and manly policy.

To justify us in taking the administration of their affairs out of the hands of the East India Company, on my principles, I must see several conditions. 1st, The object affected by the abuse should be great and important. 2nd, The abuse affecting this great object ought to be a great abuse. 3d, It ought to be habitual, and not accidental. 4th, It ought to be utterly incurable in the body as it now stands constituted.  All this ought to be made as visible to me as the light of the sun, before I should strike off an atom of their charter.  A right honorable gentleman[54] has said, and said, I think, but once, and that very slightly, (whatever his original demand for a plan might seem to require,) that “there are abuses in the Company’s government.”  If that were all, the scheme of the mover of this bill, the scheme of his learned friend, and his own scheme of reformation, (if he has any,) are all equally needless.  There are, and must be, abuses in all governments.  It amounts to no more than a nugatory proposition.