eir appointment. The cause must be sought elsewhere.

[Sidenote: Powers and objects of act of 1773, and the effects thereof.]

The act had in its view (independently of several detached regulations)
five fundamental objects.

1st. The reformation of the Court of Proprietors of the East India
Company.

2ndly. A new model of the Court of Directors, and an enforcement of
their authority over the servants abroad.

3rdly. The establishment of a court of justice capable of protecting the
natives from the oppressions of British subjects.

4thly. The establishment of a general council, to be seated in Bengal,
whose authority should, in many particulars, extend over all the British
settlements in India.

5thly. To furnish the ministers of the crown with constant information
concerning the whole of the Company's correspondence with India, in
order that they might be enabled to inspect the conduct of the Directors
and servants, and to watch over the execution of all parts of the act;
that they might be furnished with matter to lay before Parliament from
time to time, according as the state of things should render regulation
or animadversion necessary.

[Sidenote: Court of Proprietors.]

[Sidenote: New qualification.]

The first object of the policy of this act was to improve the
constitution of the Court of Proprietors. In this case, as in almost all
the rest, the remedy was not applied directly to the disease. The
complaint was, that factions in the Court of Proprietors had shown, in
several instances, a disposition to support the servants of the Company
against the just coercion and legal prosecution of the Directors.
Instead of applying a corrective to the distemper, a change was proposed
in the constitution. By this reform, it was presumed that an interest
would arise in the General Court more independent in itself, and more
connected with the commercial prosperity of the Company. Under the new
constitution, no proprietor, not possessed of a thousand pounds capital
stock, was permitted to vote in the General Court: before the act, five
hundred pounds was a sufficient qualification for one vote; and no value
gave more. But as the lower classes were disabled, the power was
increased in the higher: proprietors of three thousand pounds were
allowed two votes; those of six thousand were entitled to three; ten
thousand pounds was made the qualification for four. The votes were thus
regulated in the scale and gradation of