of courts and the perfidious levity of the multitude, we fell in the cause of honor, in the cause of our country, in the cause of human nature itself!  But if fortune should be as powerful over fame as she has been prevalent over virtue, at least our conscience is beyond her jurisdiction.  My poor share in the support of that great measure no man shall ravish from me.  It shall be safely lodged in the sanctuary of my heart,—­never, never to be torn from thence, but with those holds that grapple it to life.

I say, I well remember that bill, and every one of its honest and its wise provisions.  It is not true that this debt was ever protected or enforced, or any revenue whatsoever set apart for it.  It was left in that bill just where it stood:  to be paid or not to be paid out of the Nabob’s private treasures, according to his own discretion.  The Company had actually given it their sanction, though always relying for its validity on the sole security of the faith of him[14] who without their knowledge or consent entered into the original obligation.  It had no other sanction; it ought to have had no other.  So far was Mr. Fox’s bill from providing funds for it, as this ministry have wickedly done for this, and for ten times worse transactions, out of the public estate, that an express clause immediately preceded, positively forbidding any British subject from receiving assignments upon any part of the territorial revenue, on any pretence whatsoever.[15]

You recollect, Mr. Speaker, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer strongly professed to retain every part of Mr. Fox’s bill which was intended to prevent abuse; but in his India bill, which (let me do justice) is as able and skilful a performance, for its own purposes, as ever issued from the wit of man, premeditating this iniquity,—­

    Hoc ipsum ut strueret, Trojamque aperiret Achivis,—­

expunged this essential clause, broke down the fence which was raised to cover the public property against the rapacity of his partisans, and thus levelling every obstruction, he made a firm, broad highway for sin and death, for usury and oppression, to renew their ravages throughout the devoted revenues of the Carnatic.

The tenor, the policy, and the consequences of this debt of 1767 are in the eyes of ministry so excellent, that its merits are irresistible; and it takes the lead to give credit and countenance to all the rest.  Along with this chosen body of heavy-armed infantry, and to support it in the line, the right honorable gentleman has stationed his corps of black cavalry.  If there be any advantage between this debt and that of 1769, according to him the cavalry debt has it.  It is not a subject of defence:  it is a theme of panegyric.  Listen to the right honorable gentleman, and you will find it was contracted to save the country,—­to prevent mutiny in armies,—­to introduce economy in revenues; and for all these honorable purposes, it originated at the express desire and by the representative authority of the Company itself.