ery foundation of the authority of the House of Peers; and
they branded it as such by their resolution.

The House had not sufficient evidence to enable them legally to punish
this practice, but they had enough to caution them against all
confidence in the authors and abettors of it. They performed their duty
in humbly advising his Majesty against the employment of such ministers;
but his Majesty was advised to keep those ministers, and to dissolve
that Parliament. The House, aware of the importance and urgency of its
duty with regard to the British interests in India, which were and are
in the utmost disorder, and in the utmost peril, most humbly requested
his Majesty not to dissolve the Parliament during the course of their
very critical proceedings on that subject. His Majesty's gracious
condescension to that request was conveyed in the royal faith, pledged
to a House of Parliament, and solemnly delivered from the throne. It was
but a very few days after a committee had been, with the consent and
concurrence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed for an inquiry
into certain accounts delivered to the House by the Court of Directors,
and then actually engaged in that inquiry, that the ministers,
regardless of the assurance given from the crown to a House of Commons,
did dissolve that Parliament. We most humbly submit to his Majesty's
consideration the consequences of this their breach of public faith.

Whilst the members of the House of Commons, under that security, were
engaged in his Majesty's and the national business, endeavors were
industriously used to calumniate those whom it was found impracticable
to corrupt. The reputation of the members, and the reputation of the
House itself, was undermined in every part of the kingdom.

In the speech from the throne relative to India, we are cautioned by the
ministers "not to lose sight of the effect any measure may have on the
Constitution of our country." We are apprehensive that a calumnious
report, spread abroad, of an attack upon his Majesty's prerogative by
the late House of Commons, may have made an impression on his royal
mind, and have given occasion to this unusual admonition to the present.
This attack is charged to have been made in the late Parliament by a
bill which passed the House of Commons, in the late session of that
Parliament, for the regulation of the affairs, for the preservation of
the commerce, and for the amendment of the government of thi