to open
his jaws above an inch or two at the utmost. Thus his work is finished.
But I tell the right honorable gentleman, that controlled depravity is
not innocence, and that it is not the labor of delinquency in chains
that will correct abuses. Will these gentlemen of the direction
animadvert on the partners of their own guilt? Never did a serious plan
of amending of any old tyrannical establishment propose the authors and
abettors of the abuses as the reformers of them. If the undone people of
India see their old oppressors in confirmed power, even by the
reformation, they will expect nothing but what they will certainly
feel,--continuance, or rather an aggravation, of all their former
sufferings. They look to the seat of power, and to the persons who fill
it; and they despise those gentlemen's regulations as much as the
gentlemen do who talk of them.

But there is a cure for everything. Take away, say they, the Court of
Proprietors, and the Court of Directors will do their duty. Yes,--as
they have done it hitherto. That the evils in India have solely arisen
from the Court of Proprietors is grossly false. In many of them the
Directors were heartily concurring; in most of them they were
encouraging, and sometimes commanding; in all they were conniving.

But who are to choose this well-regulated and reforming Court of
Directors?--Why, the very Proprietors who are excluded from all
management, for the abuse of their power. They will choose, undoubtedly,
out of themselves, men like themselves; and those who are most forward
in resisting your authority, those who are most engaged in faction or
interest with the delinquents abroad, will be the objects of their
selection. But gentlemen say, that, when this choice is made, the
Proprietors are not to interfere in the measures of the Directors,
whilst those Directors are busy in the control of their common patrons
and masters in India. No, indeed, I believe they will not desire to
interfere. They will choose those whom they know may be trusted, safely
trusted, to act in strict conformity to their common principles,
manners, measures, interests, and connections. They will want neither
monitor nor control. It is not easy to choose men to act in conformity
to a public interest against their private; but a sure dependence may be
had on those who are chosen to forward their private interest at the
expense of the public. But if the Directors should slip, and deviate
into rectitude