parliament, and Lord North,
after exculpating government from various insinuations regarding the
annual payment of the company, moved a series of resolutions, tending to
establish the grant of a loan as a matter of necessary policy, but not
as a claim of right or justice. He proposed that L1,400,000 should be
advanced, and that their dividends should be restricted to six per cent,
till the whole was repaid, and afterwards to seven per cent, until their
bond debt was reduced to L1,500,000. This passed without a division.
At the same time, Lord North suggested some regulations as proper to
prevent the recurrence of similar embarrassments, and to reform all
abuses in the government of India. On a future day he moved that the
company should be permitted to export tea to America free of all duty,
which was accepted by the company as a great boon: they having at that
time seventeen millions of pounds of tea in their warehouses in England.
Finally, he proposed his grand plan for the regulation of their affairs,
as well in India as in Europe. This plan provided that six directors
should be elected annually, none holding their seats more than four
years; that the stock for the qualification of an elector should be
raised from five hundred to one thousand pounds, and possessed twelve
months previous to an election; and that in lieu of the mayor's court
at Calcutta, a new tribunal should be established, consisting of a chief
justice and three puisne judges appointed by the crown, a superiority
being also given to Bengal over all the other presidencies. These latter
resolutions occasioned warm debates, and met with vehement opposition,
but they were all eventually carried, and a bill framed on them passed
through both houses with overwhelming majorities. From this time the
affairs of India are generally regarded as being lodged securely in the
hands of government.

THE SESSION CLOSED.

During this session, ministers seem to have carried their motions and
plans with great facility. The opposition for the most part was tame
and spiritless, whence Burke calls it,--"a tedious session." On one
occasion, however, the harmony which prevailed in the cabinet, and
between the two houses, was momentarily interrupted. The lords having
taken upon themselves to make some amendments in a money bill, sent it
again down to the commons, and they resenting this as an infringement of
their rights, tossed it over the table, and kicked it out of