ately preceded, positively forbidding any
British subject from receiving assignments upon any part of the
territorial revenue, on any pretence whatsoever.[15]

You recollect, Mr. Speaker, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
strongly professed to retain every part of Mr. Fox's bill which was
intended to prevent abuse; but in _his_ India bill, which (let me do
justice) is as able and skilful a performance, for its own purposes, as
ever issued from the wit of man, premeditating this iniquity,--

Hoc ipsum ut strueret, Trojamque aperiret Achivis,--

expunged this essential clause, broke down the fence which was raised to
cover the public property against the rapacity of his partisans, and
thus levelling every obstruction, he made a firm, broad highway for sin
and death, for usury and oppression, to renew their ravages throughout
the devoted revenues of the Carnatic.

The tenor, the policy, and the consequences of this debt of 1767 are in
the eyes of ministry so excellent, that its merits are irresistible; and
it takes the lead to give credit and countenance to all the rest. Along
with this chosen body of heavy-armed infantry, and to support it in the
line, the right honorable gentleman has stationed his corps of black
cavalry. If there be any advantage between this debt and that of 1769,
according to him the cavalry debt has it. It is not a subject of
defence: it is a theme of panegyric. Listen to the right honorable
gentleman, and you will find it was contracted to save the country,--to
prevent mutiny in armies,--to introduce economy in revenues; and for
all these honorable purposes, it originated at the express desire and by
the representative authority of the Company itself.

First let me say a word to the authority. This debt was contracted, not
by the authority of the Company, not by its representatives, (as the
right honorable gentleman has the unparalleled confidence to assert,)
but in the ever-memorable period of 1777, by the usurped power of those
who rebelliously, in conjunction with the Nabob of Arcot, had overturned
the lawful government of Madras. For that rebellion this House
unanimously directed a public prosecution. The delinquents, after they
had subverted government, in order to make to themselves a party to
support them in their power, are universally known to have dealt jobs
about to the right and to the left, and to any who were willing to
receive them. This usurpation, which the right honorabl