n of the commission I am clear and decided. Can
I, can any one who has taken the smallest trouble to be informed
concerning the affairs of India, amuse himself with so strange an
imagination as that the habitual despotism and oppression, that the
monopolies, the peculations, the universal destruction of all the legal
authority of this kingdom, which have been for twenty years maturing to
their present enormity, combined with the distance of the scene, the
boldness and artifice of delinquents, their combination, their excessive
wealth, and the faction they have made in England, can be fully
corrected in a shorter term than four years? None has hazarded such an
assertion; none who has a regard for his reputation will hazard it.

Sir, the gentlemen, whoever they are, who shall be appointed to this
commission, have an undertaking of magnitude on their hands, and their
stability must not only be, but it must be thought, real; and who is it
will believe that anything short of an establishment made, supported,
and fixed in its duration, with all the authority of Parliament, can be
thought secure of a reasonable stability? The plan of my honorable
friend is the reverse of that of reforming by the authors of the abuse.
The best we could expect from them is, that they should not continue
their ancient, pernicious activity. To those we could think of nothing
but applying _control_; as we are sure that even a regard to their
reputation (if any such thing exists in them) would oblige them to
cover, to conceal, to suppress, and consequently to prevent all cure of
the grievances of India. For what can be discovered which is not to
their disgrace? Every attempt to correct an abuse would be a satire on
their former administration. Every man they should pretend to call to
an account would be found their instrument, or their accomplice. They
can never see a beneficial regulation, but with a view to defeat it. The
shorter the tenure of such persons, the better would be the chance of
some amendment.

But the system of the bill is different. It calls in persons in no wise
concerned with any act censured by Parliament,--persons generated with,
and for, the reform, of which they are themselves the most essential
part. To these the chief regulations in the bill are helps, not fetters:
they are authorities to support, not regulations to restrain them. From
these we look for much more than innocence. From these we expect zeal,
firmness, and unre