this protection to be derived, and from what fund is this compensation to arise?  The revenues are delivered over to their oppressor; the territorial jurisdiction, from whence that revenue is to arise, and under which they live, is surrendered to the same iron hands:  and that they shall be deprived of all refuge and all hope, the minister has made a solemn, voluntary declaration that he never will interfere with the Nabob’s internal government.[45]

The last thing considered by the Board of Control among the debts of the Carnatic was that arising to the East India Company, which, after the provision for the cavalry, and the consolidation of 1777, was to divide the residue of the fund of 480,000_l._ a year with the lenders of 1767.  This debt the worthy chairman, who sits opposite to me, contends to be three millions sterling.  Lord Macartney’s account of 1781 states it to be at that period 1,200,000_l._ The first account of the Court of Directors makes it 900,000_l._ This, like the private debt, being without any solid existence, is incapable of any distinct limits.  Whatever its amount or its validity may be, one thing is clear:  it is of the nature and quality of a public debt.  In that light nothing is provided for it, but an eventual surplus to be divided with one class of the private demands, after satisfying the two first classes.  Never was a more shameful postponing a public demand, which, by the reason of the thing, and the uniform practice of all nations, supersedes every private claim.

Those who gave this preference to private claims consider the Company’s as a lawful demand; else why did they pretend to provide for it?  On their own principles they are condemned.

But I, Sir, who profess to speak to your understanding and to your conscience, and to brush away from this business all false colors, all false appellations, as well as false facts, do positively deny that the Carnatic owes a shilling to the Company,—­whatever the Company may be indebted to that undone country.  It owes nothing to the Company, for this plain and simple reason:  the territory charged with the debt is their own.  To say that their revenues fall short, and owe them money, is to say they are in debt to themselves, which is only talking nonsense.  The fact is, that, by the invasion of an enemy, and the ruin of the country, the Company, either in its own name, or in the names of the Nabob of Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore, has lost for several years what it might have looked to receive from its own estate.  If men were allowed to credit themselves upon such principles, any one might soon grow rich by this mode of accounting.  A flood comes down upon a man’s estate in the Bedford Level of a thousand pounds a year, and drowns his rents for ten years.  The Chancellor would put that man into the hands of a trustee, who would gravely make up his books, and for this loss credit himself in his account for a debt due to him of 10,000_l._ It is, however, on this principle the