n those who serve the public in India. These servants,
beholding men who have been condemned for improper behavior to the
Company in inferior civil stations elevated above them, or (what is less
blamable, but still mischievous) persons without any distinguished civil
talents taken from the subordinate situations of another line to their
prejudice, will despair by any good behavior of ascending to the
dignities of their own: they will be led to improve, to the utmost
advantage of their fortune, the lower stages of power, and will endeavor
to make up in lucre what they can never hope to acquire in station.

The temporary appointment by Parliament of the Supreme Council of India
arose from an opinion that the Company, at that time at least, was not
in a condition or not disposed to a proper exercise of the privileges
which they held under their charter. It therefore behoved the Directors
to be particularly attentive to their choice of Counsellors, on the
expiration of the period during which their patronage had been
suspended. The duties of the Supreme Council had been reputed of so
arduous a nature as to require even a legislative interposition. They
were called upon, by all possible care and impartiality, to justify
Parliament at least as fully in the restoration of their privileges as
the circumstances of the time had done in their suspension.

But interests have lately prevailed in the Court of Directors, which, by
the violation of every rule, seemed to be resolved on the destruction of
those privileges of which they were the natural guardians. Every new
power given has been made the source of a new abuse; and the acts of
Parliament themselves, which provide but imperfectly for the prevention
of the mischief, have, it is to be feared, made provisions (contrary,
without doubt, to the intention of the legislature) which operate
against the possibility of any cure in the ordinary course.

In the original institution of the Supreme Council, reasons may have
existed against rendering the tenure of the Counsellors in their office
precarious. A plan of reform might have required the permanence of the
persons who were just appointed by Parliament to execute it. But the act
of 1780 gave a duration coexistent with the statute itself to a Council
not appointed by act of Parliament, nor chosen for any temporary or
special purpose; by which means the servants in the highest situation,
let their conduct be never so grossly criminal