appointment; but I cannot persuade my self that his place might not have been supplied by others equally entitled, on general constitutional grounds, to my confidence, who appear to have been unaccountably excluded, whilst his lordship has been most unnecessarily included, in breach of constitutional policy, if not of law. If the appointment is not sustainable on the grounds of necessity, it appears still less capable of being supported on considerations of policy or expediency. Can the right honourable gentleman contemplate the judicial system of the country; can he advert to the wise principles upon which it has been framed and improved; the care that has been taken to render the situation of a judge, not only independent of every influence, and especially of that of the crown, but to consider them as a distinct order in the community, to which the nation might look up with unlimited confidence, as entirely devoted to the distribution of justice, and removed from the political cabals or party struggles of the times? Can we thus contemplate the dignified and useful situation of a judge, acting within his proper sphere, and deem it either of light importance, or of little danger, to call upon a chief justice to descend from such an eminence, for the purpose of involving himself in all the confusion and vicissitudes of political life? What estimate the right honourable gentleman is prepared at this moment to form of the confidence or popularity which at taches to the present administration, it is not for me to surmise; but whether he is disposed to feel more or less sanguine upon this point, I am sure he has known too much of political life, to take for granted, that it may not, in process

of time, and perhaps at no very. distant period, become not only unpopular, but odicus. Why, then, in the eyes of the nation, are the character and influence of our first criminal judge, in short, all his best means of doing good, to be unnecessarily embarked in the frail and uncertain state of this or any administration? Why is he to be thus exposed to all the jealousy, to all the hatred, to all the reproaches, frequently most unjust, which those in high political station are doomed to suffer? As long as he remains on the bench of justice, abstracted from such struggles, whatever errors he may commit, however he may find himself compelled to act in opposition to the popular feeling, his conduct will be regarded with confidence, and even his mistakes will be respected; all parties will concur in upholding him: but let him once assume the character of a party man and a politician, let him once embark in the same bottom with the administration of the day, and he is immediately exposed to all the rancour, to all the fair cen. sure, and to all the illiberal and unjust reproach to which govern. ments are exposed: these popular prejudices will pursue him into the courts of justice, and he will there find suspicion and insinuation substituted for that confidence and reverence which attended on him while he was only a judge. Upon the whole, I consider the removal of the chief justice of the king's bench from his natural and proper functions, for the purpose of converting him into the mixed charac ter of judge and politician, and of making him necessarily a member of a party, to be a most unwise, and, if persevered in, a most unjus tifiable proceeding; that it is in the present instance to be defended on

no grounds of necessity, or even of apparent political expediency; that it is a practice not to be supported by any analogy known to the constitution; that the only instances from statute which can be argued in any degree to countenance it, are of imperfect authority in themselves, and are laws of a special nature, standing upon their own grounds, rather forming exceptions, than tending to establish a general rule; and that the only direct precedent, namely, that of lord Mansfield, amounts, when considered with all its circumstances and consequences, to a condemnation of the measure. I deprecate the practice, as calculated to raise a feeling with respect to the judicial system of the country, which perhaps, with the exception of the period when lord Mansfield presided on the bench, has never, at least in modern times, been known to exist In all the difficulties and dangers to which the establishments of the country have been exposed, the purity of the administration of justice has never been made a matter of question: the bitterest enemies of the constitution have never ventured to utter even a suspicion against it. It is that part of our system which in the eyes of every foreign nation most exalts and distinguishes the country; it is that, the value of which is most felt at home, and is calculated, from the universal sense of its approach to perfection, and the attachment which it commands, to protect and preserve the whole. Will then the right honourable gentleman, for purposes of party or personal convenience, venture to break in upon such a system? Can he pretend to say that its existence does not, above all other circumstances, depend on

the independence of the judges? or could he point out any mode by. which it is more likely to be seriously brought into disrepute and suspicion, than by making the judges politicians, and by re-placing them in any degree under the influence of the crown? I am satisfied that the public opinion was never more decided on any question than on the present. Whatever may be the result of the present discussion, the more the subject is examined, the less disposition there will be to persevere in it now, or to venture to recur to it at a future day. On these grounds I have felt it my duty to state fully my sentiments on the question, and I cannot conclude without expressing to the right hon. gentleman my conviction that he will find no reason to felicitate himself upon the part he has taken upon the present occasion; that, in proportion as the subject is canvassed and understood, the deliberate judgment of the public will be against him; and I think I may venture to assure him, that whatever political sins, either past or future, he may have to answer for to his country, for none will he find them less disposed to forgive him than for thus lending himself to a measure, the tendency of which is to break down the principles upon which the sure administration of public justice, and consequently the liberties of the British nation, pre-eminently depend.

Lord Henry Petty and Mr. Sheridan spoke against the motion; Mr. Percival and Mr. Wilberforce were for it, the latter of whom spoke at great length on the subject. The question was then called for and the house divided: for the mo tion 65, against it 222.

CHAP.

Thare, if late years, become of

HE affairs of India, which

the utmost importance to the welfare of this country, occupied much cf the time and attention of parliament during the sessions: the motions of Mr. Francis and Mr. Pauli, stated in this chapter, were but preludes to longer and still more interesting discussions on the same subject. From these, we have been led to some very interesting debates on the state of the military, and to the development of Mr. Windham's plan of defence, which had been looked for with much anxiety, as well by the friends as by those inimical to the existing administra

tion.

Mr. Francis rose, pursuant to notice, to move for the production of a document, which, he said, was at once of considerable importance and curiosity. But yet, as it related to a subject which appeared not to excite much interest in that house or the country, it might not excite adequate attention. He did feel indeed that the subject seemed to be not only disgusting in itself, but that he had to contend with an unwilling audience. This he justly conceived too much: still for fiveand-twenty years he was irresistibly impelled by a sense of duty, by a consciousness of necessity, to bring the affairs of India before parliament and the country. India was

cable to this country, and every

every day becoming more formi

thing that related to our possessions in that quarter imperatively claimed the regards of parliament. The question which he had new to sub, mit to the consideration of the house did not refer to war or peace, or to any topic of Indian policy: it was merely a point respecting finance, and was perhaps not a bad preface to the consideration of the motion of which an hon. gentleman (Mr. Paull) had given notice for that day. Motions of this nature the honourable gentleman conceived to be particularly necessary, in consequence of the irregular

manner in which the accounts re specting India were laid before the house, or rather, by the neglect, for some time, to make any offcial communication whatever from that quarter. No budget, it was to be recollected, was at all brought forward last sessions, and the noble lord who then presided over the board of control, accounted for that singular omission (nothing similar to which had ever occurred before, since the board of control was instituted) in this singular way, namely, that the necessary accounts had not arrived from India. This was certainly strange, and he recommended it to the particular attention of his majesty's present ministers. Since the end of March, F3

1803,

1803, no statement had been laid before parliament of the situation of the finances of India, which was, notwithstanding, known to be alarming. If he were to ask the reason why necessary accounts did not arrive in due time to enable the minister for India to bring forward the India budget last year, it would not surely be answered that these accounts were not sent from India in due time; for any such delay would involve the direct breach of an act of parliament. But if it were said that the dispatches were intercepted, that the ship which carried them was captured, and thus that our financial account fell into the hands of the enemy; then another question would arise. It was notorious that every captain intrusted with the conveyance of public dispatches to Europe is enjoined, by order of council, to have such dispatches suspended from out of the cabin window, with a lead attached to them, in order that when the ship should be in danger of falling into an enemy's hands the dispatches should be immediately thrown into the sea. If this salutary order had not been entirely discarded, he could not, by the way, conceive how it happened that so many important communications from India, both of a public and private nature, should have been intercepted by the enemy. He was the more surprised at this, when he considered the consequences which had resulted from the frequent loss of public documents from India; with the nature of many of which, and consequently with the state of India itself, we had of late years so often become acquainted through the press of Bonaparte. This was productive of serious injury to our interests, and the cause ought to be

seriously inquired into. No man indeed could deny the importance of inquiry and explanation, respecting a country which yielded an annual revenue of between fifteen and twenty millions; and yet he recollected, that in the course of the last session, in the month of January, he and the noble lord opposite (Castlereagh) could scarcely get above twenty members to attend to the discussion of its interests. The hon. member, referring to the subject of his motion, observed, that it was connected with the Mahratta war; and, as he had before stated, he expected to have seen it explained in the printed papers before the house. But disappointed in that expectation, and finding no mention whatever made of it, he felt it necessary to move for the produc tion of a special document to explain it. In the country of Guzerat, to the north-west of Bombay, there is a prince called Gwicowar: a part of his territory has been ceded to the company, partly to make good the pay of our subsidiary force stationed at Poona, and for other objects of indemnification. Out of that fund we ought to have received a considerable revenue; but to that prince the government of Bombay have lent a sum not much less than 360,000l. documents relative to this extraordinary transaction, I think, ought to have been laid before the house. The question naturally arising out of it, which I should wish to put, is, upon what ground this foan was made by a distressed company, and particularly by Bombay, which is by far the most distressed presidency in India. In the papers that have been printed, I cannot find any thing to throw a ray of light upon the subject. The company take possession of the terri

The

tory

tory of Gwicowar, they hold it in his name, and the first thing done is to lend him 360,000. Why, on the very face of the transaction there was something very singular, and which called for explanation. The words of the official dispatch from Bombay, relative to this prince and territory, were these-"This state," we are told, "has for its present native ruler, a chieftain of avowedly weak intellects. Our support therefore must be extended to all the operations of its government; holding as we do the immediate charge of the Gwicowar chieftain's own guard, and dividing with his troops the garrison of his capital." This money, therefore, could not be necessary to the support of this prince, all the operations of whose government were in our hands. No, it could not be wanted or advanced for any such purpose. Was there any man, he would ask, who believed that Gwicowar ever received a shilling of this loan? If there was really such a man, he could only say that that man knew nothing of the politics of India. The hon. gentleman concluded by moving, That there should be laid before the house extracts of any letters or accounts received from the presidency of Bombay, relative to the sum of Bombay rupees, 31,25,944, inserted in the account of their disbursements for the year ending the 30th of April, 1803, and said to be money lent to Gwicowar.

Mr. H. Addington said, that had he been a member of the house the preceding day when the notice of this motion was given, he would have taken the liberty of asking the honourable gentleman to post pone bringing it forward, until the board to which he (Mr. Adding ton) had the honour to belong

should have an opportunity of con sidering the subject, and inquiring into the nature of the papers connected with it. This indulgence, he hoped, the honourable mover would not be disinclined to grant to a board so recently appointed. The application would not, he trusted, be deemed unreasonable, when the nature of the business connected with their office was taken into view-when it was considered that it might be necessary to look over a number of papers, which the noble lord on the other side (lord Castlereagh) knew to be pretty voluminous, before an opinion could be formed, whether it would be consistent with the public interest to accede to the object of this motion.

Lord Castlereagh was as ready as any man to acknowledge the debt of gratitude which parliament and the country owed to the honourable mover for the zeal and assi duity which he had uniformly manifested upon the important subject of our interests in India. But in order to enter into that consideration, every part of the subject should be laid before the house. The whole of the question should be completely understood. With respect to the assertion, that the India budget not having been brought forward last session was a singular and unprecedented omis sion, he begged leave to set the honourable gentleman right, for precisely the same omission occur red the session before he entered into office (as president of the board of control). But as to the. cause of the last omission, of which the honourable gentleman had complained, it was known to have proceeded from the delay of the accounts from India, which were indispensably necessary to the prepa

F 4

ration