ticipate the absurdities of
this day,--that is, had he inferred, as his late accuser has thought
proper to do, that he could not have been guilty of malversation in
office, for this sole and curious reason, that he had been in
office,--had he argued the impossibility of his abusing his power on
this sole principle, that he had power to abuse,--he would have left
but one impression on the mind of every man who heard him, and who
believed him in his senses: that in the utmost extent he was guilty of
the charge.

But, Sir, leaving these two gentlemen to alternate as criminal and
accuser upon what principles they think expedient, it is for us to
consider whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasurer of
the Navy, acting as a Board of Control, are justified by law or policy
in suspending the legal arrangements made by the Court of Directors, in
order to transfer the public revenues to the private emolument of
certain servants of the East India Company, without the inquiry into the
origin and justice of their claims prescribed by an act of Parliament.

It is not contended that the act of Parliament did not expressly ordain
an inquiry. It is not asserted that this inquiry was not, with equal
precision of terms, specially committed, under particular regulations,
to the Court of Directors. I conceive, therefore, the Board of Control
had no right whatsoever to intermeddle in that business. There is
nothing certain in the principles of jurisprudence, if this be not
undeniably true, that when, a special authority is given to any persons
by name to do some particular act, that no others, by virtue of general
powers, can obtain a legal title to intrude themselves into that trust,
and to exercise those special functions in their place. I therefore
consider the intermeddling of ministers in this affair as a downright
usurpation. But if the strained construction by which they have forced
themselves into a suspicious office (which every man delicate with
regard to character would rather have sought constructions to avoid)
were perfectly sound and perfectly legal, of this I am certain, that
they cannot be justified in declining the inquiry which had been
prescribed to the Court of Directors. If the Board of Control did
lawfully possess the right of executing the special trust given to that
court, they must take it as they found it, subject to the very same
regulations which bound the Court of Directors. It will be allowed that