ishonesty, had
manifestly weakened the ministry in the House of Commons;[82] while in
another case, in which the King had clearly in no slight degree a
personal right to have his opinion consulted and his wishes accepted by
them as the guide for their conduct, the establishment to be arranged
for the Prince of Wales, whose twenty-first birthday was approaching,
Fox persuaded the Parliament to settle on the young Prince an allowance
of so large an amount that some even of his own colleagues disliked it
as extravagant;[83] while the King himself reasonably disapproved both
of the amount and of the mode of giving it, the amount being large
beyond all precedent, and the fact of its being given by Parliament
rendering the Prince entirely independent of his parental control, of
which his conduct had given abundant proof that he stood greatly in
need.

That he presently changed his line of behavior toward them was caused by
their introduction of a bill which he regarded as aimed in no small
degree at his own prerogative and independence--the celebrated India
Bill, by which, in the November session, Fox proposed to abrogate all
the charters which different sovereigns had granted to the East India
Company, to abolish all vested rights of either the Company or
individuals, and to confer on a board of seven persons, to be named by
Parliament, the entire administration of all the territories in any way
occupied by the Company. It was at once objected to by the Opposition in
the House of Commons, now led by Mr. Pitt, as a measure thoroughly
unconstitutional, on the twofold ground that such an abrogation of
formally granted charters, and such an extinction of vested rights, was
absolutely without precedent; and also that one real, if concealed,
object of the bill was to confer on the ministers who had framed and
introduced it so vast an amount of patronage as would render them
absolute masters of the House of Commons, and indirectly, therefore, of
the King himself, who would be practically disabled from ever dismissing
them. That such a revocation of ancient charters, and such an immovable
establishment of an administration, were inconsistent with the
principles of the constitution, was not a position taken up by Pitt in
the heat of debate, but was his deliberate opinion, as may be fairly
inferred from his assertion of it in a private letter[84] to his friend
the Duke of Rutland. It may, however, be doubted whether the epithet
"unco