this place, I pray, that, whomever you choose to succeed me, he may
resemble me exactly in all things, except in my abilities to serve, and
my fortune to please you.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] Mr. Coombe.

SPEECH

(DECEMBER 1, 1783)

UPON

THE QUESTION FOR THE SPEAKER'S LEAVING THE CHAIR IN ORDER FOR THE HOUSE
TO RESOLVE ITSELF INTO A COMMITTEE

ON

MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.

Mr. Speaker,--I thank you for pointing to me. I really wished much to
engage your attention in an early stage of the debate. I have been long
very deeply, though perhaps ineffectually, engaged in the preliminary
inquiries, which have continued without intermission for some years.
Though I have felt, with some degree of sensibility, the natural and
inevitable impressions of the several matters of fact, as they have been
successively disclosed, I have not at any time attempted to trouble you
on the merits of the subject, and very little on any of the points which
incidentally arose in the course of our proceedings. But I should be
sorry to be found totally silent upon this day. Our inquiries are now
come to their final issue. It is now to be determined whether the three
years of laborious Parliamentary research, whether the twenty years of
patient Indian suffering, are to produce a substantial reform in our
Eastern administration; or whether our knowledge of the grievances has
abated our zeal for the correction of them, and our very inquiry into
the evil was only a pretext to elude the remedy which is demanded from
us by humanity, by justice, and by every principle of true policy.
Depend upon it, this business cannot be indifferent to our fame. It will
turn out a matter of great disgrace or great glory to the whole British
nation. We are on a conspicuous stage, and the world marks our demeanor.

I am therefore a little concerned to perceive the spirit and temper in
which the debate has been all along pursued upon one side of the House.
The declamation of the gentlemen who oppose the bill has been abundant
and vehement; but they have been reserved and even silent about the
fitness or unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object it has in
view. By some gentlemen it is taken up (by way of exercise, I presume)
as a point of law, on a question of private property and corporate
franchise; by others it is regarded as the petty intrigue of a faction
at court, and argued merely as it tends to set this man a little higher
or that a litt