As the whole revenue and civil administration was thus subverted, and a clandestine government substituted in the place of it, the judicial institution underwent a like revolution.  In 1772 there had been six courts, formed out of the six provincial councils.  Eighteen new ones are appointed in their place, with each a judge, taken from the junior servants of the Company.  To maintain these eighteen courts, a tax is levied on the sums in litigation, of two and one half per cent on the great, and of five per cent on the less.  This money is all drawn from the provinces to Calcutta.  The chief justice (the same who stays in defiance of a vote of this House, and of his Majesty’s recall) is appointed at once the treasurer and disposer of these taxes, levied without any sort of authority from the Company, from the Crown, or from Parliament.

In effect, Sir, every legal, regular authority, in matters of revenue, of political administration, of criminal law, of civil law, in many of the most essential parts of military discipline, is laid level with the ground; and an oppressive, irregular, capricious, unsteady, rapacious, and peculating despotism, with a direct disavowal of obedience to any authority at home, and without any fixed maxim, principle, or rule of proceeding to guide them in India, is at present the state of your charter-government over great kingdoms.

As the Company has made this use of their trust, I should ill discharge mine, if I refused to give my most cheerful vote for the redress of these abuses, by putting the affairs of so large and valuable a part of the interests of this nation and of mankind into some steady hands, possessing the confidence and assured of the support of this House, until they can be restored to regularity, order, and consistency.

I have touched the heads of some of the grievances of the people and the abuses of government.  But I hope and trust you will give me credit, when I faithfully assure you that I have not mentioned one fourth part of what has come to my knowledge in your committee; and further, I have full reason to believe that not one fourth part of the abuses are come to my knowledge, by that or by any other means.  Pray consider what I have said only as an index to direct you in your inquiries.

If this, then, Sir, has been the use made of the trust of political powers, internal and external, given by you in the charter, the next thing to be seen is the conduct of the Company with regard to the commercial trust.  And here I will make a fair offer:—­If it can be proved that they have acted wisely, prudently, and frugally, as merchants, I shall pass by the whole mass of their enormities as statesmen.  That they have not done this their present condition is proof sufficient.  Their distresses are said to be owing to their wars.  This is not wholly true.  But if it were, is not that readiness to engage in wars, which distinguishes them, and for which the Committee of Secrecy has so branded their politics, founded on the falsest principles of mercantile speculation?