acceding
to any treaty of partition; to let out the company's troops; to the
appointment of any person removed for misdemeanour to office; and to
the hiring out any property to any civil servant of the company. It also
prohibited all monopolies; declared every illegal present recoverable by
any person for his own benefit; and employed effectual means to secure
the zemindars, or native landholders, in the possession of their
inheritances, aiming particularly at the abolition of all vexatious or
usurious claims that might be made upon them, by prohibiting mortgages,
and subjecting every doubtful claim to the examination of the
commissioners.

The disclosure of this scheme excited the greatest sensation in the
house. By the friends of Fox it was espoused with zeal and enthusiasm,
while it was attacked by his opponents with vehement indignation and
energetic invective. On the one hand it was extolled as a masterpiece
of genius, virtue, and ability; on the other, it was denounced as a
dangerous design, fraught with mischief and ruin. Pitt had promised his
support in settling the affairs of India; but though he acknowledged
that reform was wanted, it was, he said, not such a reform as this. He
remarked:--"The bill under consideration included a confiscation of
the property, and a disfranchisement of the members of the East India
Company; all the several articles of whose effects were transferred by
violence to strangers. Imagination was at a loss to guess at the most
insignificant trifle that had escaped the harpy jaws of a ravenous
coalition. The power was pretended, indeed, to be given in trust for
the benefit of the proprietors; but, in case of the grossest abuses of
trust, to whom was the appeal? To the proprietors? No; to the majority
of either house of parliament, which the most contemptible minister
could not fail to secure, with the patronage of above two millions
sterling given by this bill. The influence which would accrue from this
bill--a new, enormous, and unexampled influence--was indeed in the
highest degree alarming. Seven commissioners, chosen ostensibly by
parliament, but really by administration, were to involve in the vortex
of their authority the patronage and treasures of India. The right
honourable mover had acknowledged himself to be a man of ambition,
and it now appeared that he was prepared to sacrifice the king, the
parliament, and the people at the shrine of his ambition. He desired
to elevate his