In the third part of Pitt’s bill, he proposed that a high tribunal should be created for the trial of Indian delinquents, which tribunal was to consist of three judges, one from each court; of four peers, and six members of the House of Commons, who were authorised to act without appeal; to award, in case of conviction, fine or imprisonment; and to declare the party convicted incapable of again serving the company. No person, holding any office under the crown during pleasure, or who had ever been in the Indian service could become a member of this court.
Such were the three grand features of Pitt’s India Bill. As might have been expected, his opponents were sedulous in pointing out its defects. Burke, who had no mean share in the composition of Fox’s India Bill, the great outcry against which had been that it went to increase, in a most dangerous degree, the influence of the minister, said, that Pitt’s bill, in reality, vested in the crown an influence paramount to any that had been proposed by the bill of his opponent. On this subject, also, Fox remarked:—“By whom is this board of superintendants to be appointed? Is it not by his majesty? And 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 would venture, he said, to pronounce this part of the general system of deception and delusion, a “bed of justice,” where justice would for ever sleep. With regard to the East India charter, Fox insisted that it was as much violated by this bill as by his own; but on this important point, at least, the difference was palpable and striking; for while Fox’s bill took away commerce from the company, the other left it solely in their hands. By Pitt’s bill, indeed, the management of their commercial concerns was guaranteed to them, and they were only divested of that political power which they had abused, and of that civil authority which for a series of years they had shown themselves to be incompetent to exercise, Many other objections were started, and during the progress of the bill through the house, several amendments were moved and adopted, but its main features were preserved, and the bill finally passed both houses with triumphant majorities. In the whole, twenty-one new clauses were added to the bill, which were distinguished by the letters of the alphabet; and Sheridan humourously suggested that three other clauses should be affixed, in order, as he observed, “to complete the horn-book of the present ministry;” The minority in the lords, in a protest, branded the bill as a measure ineffectual in its provisions, unconstitutional in its partial abolition of the trial by jury, and unjust in its inquisitorial spirit. But though Pitt’s scheme was not perfect, yet in many points of view it was preferable to that of Fox; and even its errors were magnified by the prejudice of party spirit.
BILL FOR THE RESTORATION OF FORFEITED ESTATES IN SCOTLAND.
The last measure which came before parliament during the present session was a bill introduced by Mr. Dundas, for the restoration of estates in Scotland to the heirs of those who had forfeited them in the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. In making this proposition, Mr. Dundas declared that it was, in his opinion, worthy of the justice and generosity of the house. There was not one of the families comprehended in the scope of it, he said, in which some person had not atoned for the crimes and errors of his ancestors, by sacrificing his blood in the cause of his country; and he declared that the sovereign had not, for a long series of years past, a more loyal set of subjects than the Highlanders and their chieftains. He did not, however, propose that the estates should be freed from the claims existing against them at the time of their forfeiture, as this, he argued, would be establishing a premium for rebellion. Such sums, amounting to about £80,000, he suggested, should be appropriated to public purposes; £50,000 of which he recommended should be employed in the completion of the grand canal reaching from the Frith of Forth to that of Clyde. This liberal measure was received in a manner that did honour to the feelings of the house; the leaders of both parties joining in eulogising it. The bill passed the commons without any opposition; but when sent to the lords it met with a most determined resistance from the restored chancellor Thurlow, who expatiated on the ancient maxim that treason was of so deep a dye that nothing but the total eradication of the person, name, and family out of the community was adequate to its punishment. On a division, however, Thurlow was left in a great minority, and the bill passed, much to the satisfaction of the public.
PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.
Parliament was prorogued on the 20th of August, the king expressing his warmest thanks to both houses for their zealous and diligent attention to the public service. His majesty dismissed his parliament with the satisfactory conviction that he had established a ministry to his own mind, and that he had nothing more to fear from the coalition which had so long disturbed his peace. At the close of the session, indeed, the popularity of Pitt was at its height, and his power was established—a power which remained unbroken for seventeen long and eventful years.
GEORGE III. 1784-1786