on probable speculations and general ideas of good policy and good government.  New establishments, civil and judicial, were therefore formed at a very great expense, and with much complexity of constitution.  Checks and counter-checks of all kinds were contrived in the execution, as well as in the formation of this system, in which all the existing authorities of this kingdom had a share:  for Parliament appointed the members of the presiding part of the new establishment, the Crown appointed the judicial, and the Company preserved the nomination of the other officers.  So that, if the act has not fully answered its purposes, the failure cannot be attributed to any want of officers of every description, or to the deficiency of any mode of patronage in their appointment.  The cause must be sought elsewhere.

[Sidenote:  Powers and objects of act of 1773, and the effects thereof.]

The act had in its view (independently of several detached regulations) five fundamental objects.

1st.  The reformation of the Court of Proprietors of the East India Company.

2ndly.  A new model of the Court of Directors, and an enforcement of their authority over the servants abroad.

3rdly.  The establishment of a court of justice capable of protecting the natives from the oppressions of British subjects.

4thly.  The establishment of a general council, to be seated in Bengal, whose authority should, in many particulars, extend over all the British settlements in India.

5thly.  To furnish the ministers of the crown with constant information concerning the whole of the Company’s correspondence with India, in order that they might be enabled to inspect the conduct of the Directors and servants, and to watch over the execution of all parts of the act; that they might be furnished with matter to lay before Parliament from time to time, according as the state of things should render regulation or animadversion necessary.

[Sidenote:  Court of Proprietors.]

[Sidenote:  New qualification.]

The first object of the policy of this act was to improve the constitution of the Court of Proprietors.  In this case, as in almost all the rest, the remedy was not applied directly to the disease.  The complaint was, that factions in the Court of Proprietors had shown, in several instances, a disposition to support the servants of the Company against the just coercion and legal prosecution of the Directors.  Instead of applying a corrective to the distemper, a change was proposed in the constitution.  By this reform, it was presumed that an interest would arise in the General Court more independent in itself, and more connected with the commercial prosperity of the Company.  Under the new constitution, no proprietor, not possessed of a thousand pounds capital stock, was permitted to vote in the General Court:  before the act, five hundred pounds was a sufficient qualification for one vote; and no value gave more.