ruption. To fhew this, I will confider the objec tions, which I think are four.

ift. That the bill is an attack on the chartered 5. rights of men.

2dly. That it increases the influence of the

crown.

3dly. That it does not increase, but diminishes, the influence of the crown, in order to promote the interefts of certain minifters and their party.

4thly. That it deeply affects the national credit.

As to the first of these objections; I must observe that the phrase of "the chartered rights of "men," is full of affectation; and very unusual in the difcuffion of privileges conferred by charters of the present description. But it is not difficult to discover what end that ambiguous mode of expreffion, fo often reiterated, is meant to answer.

The rights of men, that is to fay, the natural. rights of mankind, are indeed facred things; and if any publick measure is proved mischievously to affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to that measure, even if no charter at all could be fet up against it. If these natural rights are further af firmed and declared by exprefs covenants, if they are clearly defined and fecured against chicane, against power, and authority, by written inftruments and pofitive engagements, they are in a ftill

better

better condition: they partake not only of the fanctity of the object fo fecured, but of that folemn publick faith itself, which fecures an object of fuch importance. Indeed this formal recognition, by the fovereign power, of an original right in the fubject, can never be fubverted, but by rooting up the holding radical principles of government, and even of fociety itself. The charters, which we call by diftinction great, are publick inftruments of this nature; I mean the charters of king John and king Henry the third. The things fecured by these inftruments may, without any deceitful ambiguity, be very fitly called the chartered rights of men.

These charters have made the very name of a charter dear to the heart of every Englishman.But, Sir, there may be, and there are charters, not only different in nature, but formed on principles the

very reverse of those of the great charter. Of this kind is the charter of the Eaft-India company. Magna charta is a charter to reftrain power, and to deftroy monopoly. The Eaft-India charter is a charter to establish monopoly, and to create power. Political power and commercial monopoly are not the rights of men; and the rights of them derived from charters, it is fallacious and fophiftical to call "the chartered rights of men." These chartered rights, (to speak of fuch charters and of their ef fects in terms of the greateft poffible moderation)

do

1

do at least fufpend the natural rights of mankind at large; and in their very frame and conftitution are liable to fall into a direct violation of them.

It is a charter of this latter defcription (that is to fay a charter of power and monopoly) which is affected by the bill before you. The bill, Sir, does, without queftion, affect it; it does affect it effentially and substantially. But having stated to you of what description the chartered rights are which this bill touches, I feel no difficulty at all in ac knowledging the exiftence of those chartered rights, in their fullest extent. They belong to the company in the fureft manner; and they are fecured to that body by every fort of publick fanction. They are ftamped by the faith of the king; they are ftamped by the faith of parliament; they have been bought for money, for money honestly and fairly paid; they have been bought for valuable confideration, over and over again.

I therefore freely admit to the Eaft-India company their claim to exclude their fellow-fubjects from the commerce of half the globe. I admit their claim to administer an annual territorial revenue of feven millions fterling; to command an army of fixty thousand men; and to difpofe, (under the controul of a, fovereign imperial difcretion, and with the due obfervance of the natural and local law) of the lives and fortunes of thirty millions of their fellow-creatures. All this

they

they poffefs by charter and by acts of parliament, (in my opinion) without a fhadow of controversy.

Those who carry the rights and claims of the company the furtheft do not contend for more than this; and all this I freely grant. But granting all this, they muft grant to me in my turn, that all political power which is set over men, and that all privilege claimed or exercised in exclufion of them, being wholly artificial, and for so much a derogation from the natural equality of mankind at large, ought to be fome way or other exercifed ultimately for their benefit.

If this is true with regard to every fpecies of political dominion, and every description of commercial privilege, none of which can be original felf-derived rights, or grants for the mere private benefit of the holders, then fuch rights, or privileges, or whatever else you choose to call them, are all in the ftricteft fenfe a trust; and it is of the very effence of every truft to be rendered accountable; and even totally to cease, when it fubftantially varies from the purpofes for which alone it could have a lawful exiftence.

This I conceive, Sir, to be true of trufts of power vested in the higheft hands, and of fuch as feem to hold of no human creature. But about the application of this principle to fubordinate derivative trufts, I do not fee how a controversy can be maintained. To whom then would I make the

Eaft

Eaft-India company accountable? Why, to parlia ment, to be fure; to parliament, from whom their trust was derived; to parliament, which alone is capable of comprehending the magnitude of its object, and its abuse; and alone capable of an effectual legislative remedy. The very charter, which is held out to exclude parliament from correcting malverfation with regard to the high truft vefted in the company, is the very thing which at once gives a title and impofes a duty on us to interfere with effect, wherever power and authority originating from ourselves are perverted from their purposes, and become inftruments of wrong and

violence.

If parliament, Sir, had nothing to do with this charter, we might have fome fort of Epicurean excuse to stand aloof, indifferent spectators of what paffes in the company's name in India and in London. But if we are the very caufe of the evil, we are in a special manner engaged to the redress; and for us paffively to bear with oppreffions committed under the fanction of our own authority, is in truth and reafon for this houfe to be an active accomplice in the abuse.

That the power notorioufly, grofsly abused has been bought from us is very certain. But this circumftance, which is urged against the bill, becomes an additional motive for our interference; left we fhould be thought to have fold the blood

of