d to an attention to
the characters and capacities of the persons employed in that high
trust. The other part of their interference was by way of inspection. By
this right of inspection, everything in the Company's correspondence
from India, which related to the civil or military affairs and
government of the Company, was directed by the act to be within fourteen
days after the receipt laid before the Secretary of State, and
everything that related to the management of the revenues was to be laid
before the Commissioners of the Treasury. In fact, both description of
these papers have been generally communicated to that board.

[Sidenote: Defects in the plan.]

It appears to your Committee that there were great and material defects
in both parts of the plan. With regard to the approbation of persons
nominated to the Supreme Council by the Court of Directors, no
sufficient means were provided for carrying to his Majesty, along with
the nomination, the particulars in the conduct of those who had been in
the service before, which might render them proper objects of
approbation or rejection. The India House possesses an office of record
capable of furnishing, in almost all cases, materials for judging on the
behavior of the servants in their progress from the lowest to the
highest stations; and the whole discipline of the service, civil and
military, must depend upon an examination of these records inseparably
attending every application for an appointment to the highest stations.
But in the present state of the nomination the ministers of the crown
are not furnished with the proper means of exercising the power of
control intended by the law, even if they were scrupulously attentive to
the use of it. There are modes of proceeding favorable to neglect.
Others excite inquiry and stimulate to vigilance.

[Sidenote: Proposition to remedy them.]

Your Committee, therefore, are of opinion, that for the future
prevention of cabal, and of private and partial representation, whether
above or below, that, whenever any person who has been in the service
shall be recommended to the King's ministers to fill a vacancy in the
Council-General, the Secretary of the Court of Directors shall be
ordered to make a strict search into the records of the Company, and
shall annex to the recommendation the reasons of the Court of Directors
for their choice, together with a faithful copy of whatever shall be
found (if anything can be found) relat