according to his demeanor.  What is the influence in the grant of any place in India, to that which is acquired by the protection or compromise with such guilt, and with the command of such riches, under the dominion of the hopes and fears which power is able to hold out to every man in that condition?  That man’s whole fortune, half a million perhaps, becomes an instrument of influence, without a shilling of charge to the civil list:  and the influx of fortunes which stand in need of this protection is continual.  It works both ways:  it influences the delinquent, and it may corrupt the minister.  Compare the influence acquired by appointing, for instance, even a Governor-General, and that obtained by protecting him.  I shall push this no further.  But I wish gentlemen to roll it a little in their own minds.

The bill before you cuts off this source of influence.  Its design and main scope is, to regulate the administration of India upon the principles of a court of judicature,—­and to exclude, as far as human prudence can exclude, all possibility of a corrupt partiality, in appointing to office, or supporting in office, or covering from inquiry and punishment, any person who has abused or shall abuse his authority.  At the board, as appointed and regulated by this bill, reward and punishment cannot be shifted and reversed by a whisper.  That commission becomes fatal to cabal, to intrigue, and to secret representation, those instruments of the ruin of India.  He that cuts off the means of premature fortune, and the power of protecting it when acquired, strikes a deadly blow at the great fund, the bank, the capital stock of Indian influence, which cannot be vested anywhere, or in any hands, without most dangerous consequences to the public.

The third and contradictory objection is, that this bill does not increase the influence of the crown; on the contrary, that the just power of the crown will be lessened, and transferred to the use of a party, by giving the patronage of India to a commission nominated by Parliament and independent of the crown.  The contradiction is glaring, and it has been too well exposed to make it necessary for me to insist upon it.  But passing the contradiction, and taking it without any relation, of all objections that is the most extraordinary.  Do not gentlemen know that the crown has not at present the grant of a single office under the Company, civil or military, at home or abroad?  So far as the crown is concerned, it is certainly rather a gainer; for the vacant offices in the new commission are to be filled up by the king.

It is argued, as a part of the bill derogatory to the prerogatives of the crown, that the commissioners named in the bill are to continue for a short term of years, too short in my opinion,—­and because, during that time, they are not at the mercy of every predominant faction of the court.  Does not this objection lie against the present Directors,—­none of whom are named by the crown, and a proportion of