But as the lower classes were disabled, the power was increased in the higher:  proprietors of three thousand pounds were allowed two votes; those of six thousand were entitled to three; ten thousand pounds was made the qualification for four.  The votes were thus regulated in the scale and gradation of property.  On this scale, and on some provisions to prevent occasional qualifications and splitting of votes, the whole reformation rested.

[Sidenote:  The ballot.]

[Sidenote:  Indian interest.]

Several essential points, however, seem to have been omitted or misunderstood.  No regulation was made to abolish the pernicious custom of voting by ballot, by means of which acts of the highest concern to the Company and to the state might be done by individuals with perfect impunity; and even the body itself might be subjected to a forfeiture of all its privileges for defaults of persons who, so far from being under control, could not be so much as known in any mode of legal cognizance.  Nothing was done or attempted to prevent the operation of the interest of delinquent servants of the Company in the General Court, by which they might even come to be their own judges, and, in effect, under another description, to become the masters in that body which ought to govern them.  Nor was anything provided to secure the independency of the proprietary body from the various exterior interests by which it might be disturbed, and diverted from the conservation of that pecuniary concern which the act laid down as the sole security for preventing a collusion between the General Court and the powerful delinquent servants in India.  The whole of the regulations concerning the Court of Proprietors relied upon two principles, which have often proved fallacious:  namely, that small numbers were a security against faction and disorder; and that integrity of conduct would follow the greater property.  In no case could these principles be less depended upon than in the affairs of the East India Company.  However, by wholly cutting off the lower, and adding to the power of the higher classes, it was supposed that the higher would keep their money in that fund to make profit,—­that the vote would be a secondary consideration, and no more than a guard to the property,—­and that therefore any abuse which tended to depreciate the value of their stock would be warmly resented by such proprietors.

If the ill effects of every misdemeanor in the Company’s servants were to be immediate, and had a tendency to lower the value of the stock, something might justly be expected from the pecuniary security taken by the act.  But from the then state of things, it was more than probable that proceedings ruinous to the permanent interest of the Company might commence in great lucrative advantages.  Against this evil large pecuniary interests were rather the reverse of a remedy.  Accordingly, the Company’s servants have ever since covered over the worst oppressions of the people under their government, and the most cruel and wanton ravages of all the neighboring countries, by holding out, and for a time actually realizing, additions of revenue to the territorial funds of the Company, and great quantities of valuable goods to their investment.