is not this giving power to the sovereign
for the ends of influence, and for the extension of that system of
corruption which has been so justly reprobated? The last parliament, to
their immortal honour, voted the increasing influence of the crown to
be inconsistent with public liberty. The right honourable gentleman, in
consequence of that vote, finds the influence probably unequal to the
great objects of his administration. He is therefore willing to take the
present opportunity of making his court where he knows our late doctrine
will never be acceptable; and the plain language of the whole matter now
is, that the patronage of India must be appended to the executive power
of this country, which otherwise will not be able to cany on schemes
hostile to the constitution, in opposition to the house of commons."
Fox objected to the bill on other grounds. He remarked, that the
bill established a weak and inefficient government, by dividing
its powers--to the one board belonged the privilege of ordering and
contriving measures; to the other, that of carrying them into execution.
Theories, he said, which did not connect men with measures, were not
theories for this world: they were chimeras with which a recluse might
divert his fancy, but they were not principles en which a statesman
would found his system. He maintained, that by the negative vested in
the commissioners, the chartered rights of the company, on which stress
had been laid, were insidiously undermined and virtually annihilated.
Founded on such heterogeneous principles, how, he asked, could such a
government be other than the constant victim of internal distraction?
As for the appeal allowed from the decisions of the board of control
to the privy-council, that was only the appeal from the aggressor
transformed into the character of a judge, and was therefore in the
highest degree nugatory and ridiculous. Against the clauses of the
bill respecting the Zemindars, Fox entered his strong protest. In his
opinion they ought to be rated by a fixed rule of past periods, and
not of a vague and indefinite future inquiry. He stigmatized the
new tribunal as a screen for delinquents, and as a palpable and
unconstitutional violation of the sacred right of a trial by jury. As
no man was to be tried but on the accusation of the company or the
attorney-general, he contended, that the delinquent had only to
conciliate government in order to his remaining in perfect security. He
wo