crown, or now disposable by that authority. It is so far from being
anything new, violent, or alarming, that I do not recollect, in any
Parliamentary commission, down to the commissioners of the land-tax,
that it has ever been otherwise.

The objection of the tenure for four years is an objection to all places
that are not held during pleasure; but in that objection I pronounce the
gentlemen, from my knowledge of their complexion and of their
principles, to be perfectly in earnest. The party (say these gentlemen)
of the minister who proposes this scheme will be rendered powerful by
it; for he will name his party friends to the commission. This objection
against party is a party objection; and in this, too, these gentlemen
are perfectly serious. They see, that, if, by any intrigue, they should
succeed to office, they will lose the _clandestine_ patronage, the true
instrument of clandestine influence, enjoyed in the name of subservient
Directors, and of wealthy, trembling Indian delinquents. But as often as
they are beaten off this ground, they return to it again. The minister
will name his friends, and persons of his own party. Whom should he
name? Should he name his adversaries? Should he name those whom he
cannot trust? Should he name those to execute his plans who are the
declared enemies to the principles of his reform? His character is here
at stake. If he proposes for his own ends (but he never will propose)
such names as, from their want of rank, fortune, character, ability, or
knowledge, are likely to betray or to fall short of their trust, he is
in an independent House of Commons,--in an House of Commons which has,
by its own virtue, destroyed the instruments of Parliamentary
subservience. This House of Commons would not endure the sound of such
names. He would perish by the means which he is supposed to pursue for
the security of his power. The first pledge he must give of his
sincerity in this great reform will be in the confidence which ought to
be reposed in those names.

For my part, Sir, in this business I put all indirect considerations
wholly out of my mind. My sole question, on each clause of the bill,
amounts to this:--Is the measure proposed required by the necessities of
India? I cannot consent totally to lose sight of the real wants of the
people who are the objects of it, and to hunt after every matter of
party squabble that may be started on the several provisions. On the
question of the duratio