the Crown thought, that if a great part of the power of the Company were transferred to the King's servants, all difficulties would vanish; and the Lawyers imagined, that nothing but an extension of the blessings of English law was necessary to secure the happiness of the Hindoos. It was observed, too, that many individuals, returned from India, found their way into the Court of Proprietors, and might exert themselves to screen from punishment those delinquents with whom they had been formerly leagued, or whose impunity might be necessary to their safety.

It was under the prevalence of these ideas, that the first great change was made in the constitution of the Company. By the law passed, in 1773, after great opposition from the Directors and Proprietors, the qualification for a vote in the Court of Proprietors was raised from 500l. to 1000l. stock. To every proprietor possessed of 3000l. two votes; to every one possessed of 6000l. three; to every one possessed of 10,000l. and upwards, four votes were given. Six of the Directors only were to be reelected annually. In India, the government of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, was vested in a Governor-General and four Councillors; and to them the other Presidencies were rendered subordinate. A Supreme Court of Judicature, composed of a Chief-Justice and three other Judges, was established at Calcutta. The Governor-General and Councillors were named by Parliament-that is to say, by the Minister-to hold their offices for five years; after which the patronage was to revert to the Directors. The Judges were to be appointed by the Crown, and were independent of the Company. It was also provided, that every thing in the Company's correspondence from India which related to the civil or military affairs of the government, should be laid before the Ministry.

It is not now necessary to enter into a minute examination of this plan. To raise the amount of the qualification of the Proprietors, was a measure ill adapted to shut out those delinquents, of whose crimes wealth was the sure accompaniment. If there was an appearance of preventing tumult by diminishing the number of votes, private cabal and intrigue,' observes a famous Committee of the House of Commons, 6 was facilitated at least in an equal degree; and it is cabal and corruption, rather than disorder and confusion, that are most to be dreaded in transacting the affairs of India.' In India, the plan produced confusion and disorder enough. There were more conflicts between the Presidencies, more acts of disobedience to the Directors, more dissensions in the Council, more violence and treachery towards the Native Powers, than at any former period; and, with all this, the debt went on increasing as rapidly as the territories were extended. The plan for the establishment of a Supreme Court of Judicature, produced effects

so remarkable, that it will be useful to give some idea of them, especially as they throw light upon some very prevailing prejudices.

The grand source of mischief to the natives,' says Mr Mill, in the jurisprudential plan, was the unfortunate inattention of its authors to the general principles of law, detached from its accidental and national forms. As the vulgar of every nation think their language the natural one, and all others arbitrary and artificial, so a large mass of Englishmen consider English law as the pure extract of reason, adapted to the exigencies of human nature itself;-ignorant that, for the greater part, it is arbitrary, technical, ill adapted to the general ends which it is intended to serve; that it has more of singularity, and less capacity of adaptation to the state of other nations, than any scheme of law to be found in any other civilized country. Yet this whole system, the British Parliament, or British Ministry, transplanted to Bengal exactly as it stood; and imagined that they had amply provided for the administration of justice in India. And the violent efforts which were made, to bend the rights of the natives to a conformity with the English laws, for the purpose. of gratifying a pedantic and mechanical attachment to the arbitrary forms of the Westminster Courts, produced more injustice and oppression, and excited more alarm, than probably was experienced through the whole of its duration, from the imperfection of the previous powers of law and judicature.' II. p. 300.

This Court was empowered to administer in Bengal all the departments of English law. It was a court of Common Law and a court of Equity; a court of Oyer and Terminer and gaol delivery; an Ecclesiastical Court, and a Court of Admiralty. Its jurisdiction extended over all British subjects, and to all suits, actions, and complaints' against any person directly or indirectly in the service' of the Company, or of any British subject, as well as to such claims by British subjects against natives, as the parties to any contract had agreed, in case of dispute, to submit to its decision. When the state of Bengal at that time is taken into consideration,-the condition in which the Company stood, administering some departments of the government in its own name, leaving others to a nominal Nabob, -the uncertain relation of the Zemindars to the government, some asserting that they were landholders, others that they were merely collectors of revenue,-there will scarcely be found, amongst the speculations of the wildest theorists, any thing so fraught with the most mischievous confusion, as this careless and ambiguous enactment. Yet the authors of it were no doubt persons who prided themselves on being practical men.

The Court was professedly intended for the protection of the natives against European oppression: and one of its first operations was the tri.. of Nuncomar. The fate of this man is well known. He had accused the Governor-General, Hastings, be

fore the Council, of receiving presents contrary to law. The Council wished to inquire into the subject; but Mr Hastings protested against all inquiry, and attempted to prosecute his accuser for a conspiracy. The prosecution failed; but, in the mean time, Nuncomar was accused of a forgery committed some years before the establishment of the Supreme Court;-he was tried by that court-convicted on doubtful evidence-and sentenced to death. Forgery is not punishable with death either by the Mahomedan or Hindoo laws. Yet the sentence was carried into execution before the King's pleasure could be known. He was hanged amidst the shrieks of thousands of his countrymen. It is not necessary to inquire whether this act could be legally justified; -though it certainly would have been just as legal to have executed any Mahomedan inhabitant of Calcutta for bigamy, under the statute of James I. Such an inquiry would not assist us in forming an estimate of its effect on the Hindoos. It was enough that they saw a man of the highest rank in their society and religion, who had stood forward to inculpate an English ruler, punished with death, for a crime which they had never before seen visited with such a penalty. They knew not for what acts of their life they might not be pursued to their destruction, if they ventured to contend with men who could wield the terrible powers of a law, of which the nature or extent was unknown. Mr Hastings, from that moment, was no more troubled with the accusations of the natives.

Such was the effect of the Supreme Court in the protection of the natives against occasional oppression ;-and its effect on the ordinary course of justice was not less extraordinary. The indiscriminate introduction of the English rules as to giving bail and allowing Habeas Corpus, produced of themselves the most intolerable abuse and injustice; while the misapplication of the technical doctrine of Corporations, was fruitful of other absurdities. The obstruction to the course of justice, indeed, soon became so great, that nothing better occurred to the resi dent government, than to make it the interest of this Supreme Court virtually to suspend its proceedings. Accordingly, in 1780, a notable plan was devised by Warren Hastings for preventing all collision between the King's and the Company's Courts. He created an office of 7000 or 8000l. a year, which was to be held by the Chief Justice,-at the pleasure of the Governor and Council. This office, the Chief Justice, Sir Elijah Impey, accepted; and the Supreme Court would probably have become as tranquil as could have been wished, had not this compromise attracted the notice of Parliament, and Sir Elijah been recalled. About the same time, however, an act was passed (1782) to restrain the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, by some defini

tions, which, if they had been framed at first, as they might have been by a moderate exercise of reason, instead of being adopted only as the result of a groping experience, would have saved seven years of alarm and disorder.

Of Mr Fox's India bill, by which the power and patronage of India was to be lodged in the hands of seven Commissioners to be named by Parliament, as an attempt to improve the Government of India, Mr Mill has a very low opinion. It is indeed remarkable, if we examine the ablest defence of that measure which has been left us, (Burke's speech on the second reading), that while the Government of India, under the Company, was shown to be one of the worst that had ever existed, there was little attempt to show in what manner the Government of the seven Commissioners to be nominated by Parliament would be better. The main argument, used in support of the new plan, was undoubtedly a fallacy. The Government of India, it was said, would be Judicial,―because the rulers were to be removeable only in the same manner in which Judges might be removed, by address of either House of Parliament. But it was not observed, that in whatever degree the duties of Judges were better performed than those of other public functionaries, was in a small degree attributable to their being exempt from the influence of the fear of dismissal, while they were open to the influence of so many other sinister motives;-that it was to be much more attributed to the publicity of their proceedings, which, unless the law be very imperfect and uncertain, makes it impossible for them to act with gross impropriety, without drawing down on themselves the most heavy moral punishment. In how very different a situation would the Commissioners have been, who had to decide in secret, on subjects respecting which there could be no fixed rules to guide them, and who, while they had to control public functionaries appointed by themselves, would never have received the praise of their vigilance and probity, or the discredit of their neglect or connivance, from the people for whose benefit they were appointed to act?

The bill of Mr Fox, however, though its progress and fate form an interesting part of English history, has much less to do with that of India than the plan of his celebrated rival, which has been carried into full effect. The plan of Mr Fox was direct and intelligible; the plan of Mr Pitt was, both as to its object and operations, involved in studied mystery. A Board was established, composed of four members, (besides the Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of the Secretaries of State), the duties of which were defined, or, as Mr Mill says, ' not defined at all, but rather adumbrated, in the following vague and uncertain terms.' They were from time to time, to check, su

perintend, and control, all acts, operations, and concerns which in anywise relate to the Civil and Military Government or Revenues of the territories and possessions of the said United Company in the East Indies. '. . . . All correspondence relative to the Government was to be communicated to this Board; all letters from India, as soon as received; all letters, orders, or instructions intended for India, before they were sent '. ... The most material clause was that by which the Court of Directors were 'bound to yield obedience to every command of the Board, and to send out all orders and instructions to India which it pleased the Board to alter and amend.' In the second edition of the bill, when a sure majority made the Minister bold, a power was added, by which, in cases of secrecy, and cases of urgency, of which the Board itself was to be the judge, the Board of Control might issue and transmit its own orders to India without the inspection of the Directors. ...' It is easily understood,' continues Mr Mill, that when one body has the power of unlimited command, and another is under the obligation of unlimited obedience, the latter has no power whatsoever, but what the former is pleased to allow. This is the relative position of the Board of Control, and the East India Company. The powers of the Board of Control convert the Company's Courts into agents of its will. The real, the sole governing power of India, is the Board of Control; and it only makes use of the Court of Directors as an instrument, a subordinate office, for the management of details, and the preparation of business for the cognisance of the superior power. That such is the real nature of the machine, is perfectly evident; though hitherto its movements have been generally smooth; the Directors having ventured on nothing disagreeable to the Government, and the trouble of regulating all the business of detail being readily left to them. '

Mr Mill then examines in what manner that part of the business of governing India in which the Board of Control really takes a share, is affected by their interference. He considers that the President, the only efficient member of the Board of Control, appointed as he is by Parliamentary influence, is not very likely, in appropriate talent or knowledge, to be superior to the Court of Directors. That the Board have no motives to application, is evident; and it is just as plain, that the Court of Directors must be discouraged from a labourious consideration of the measures of Government, when all the fruits of their knowledge and thought may be rejected by the mere caprice of the individual President. As to the increase of probity which is to be expected from the operation of this plan, he observes, that the sanction of public opinion, which would operate upon