LORD NORTH’S PROPOSAL RESPECTING THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.
On the 23rd of March, Lord North informed the house that the East India Company had made no satisfactory proposals for the renewal of their charter, and he moved that the speaker should give them three years’ notice, as ordered by act of parliament, previous to the dissolution of their monopoly; and that the sum of £4,200,000 due from the public to the company should be paid on the 25th of April, 1783, agreeably to the tenor of the said act. Fox inveighed against this measure, as tending to deprive us of our East Indian as well as our American possessions; but Lord North having represented that a new corporation might be formed, if the company did not offer a fair bargain to the public, his motion was carried without a division.