e
better of the legislative provisions calculated against ill practices
then in their beginnings; insomuch that, in 1781, two committees were
again instituted, who have made seventeen reports. It was upon the most
minute, exact, and laborious collection and discussion of facts, that
the late House of Commons proceeded in the reform which they attempted
in the administration of India, but which has been frustrated by ways
and means the most dishonorable to his Majesty's government, and the
most pernicious to the Constitution of this kingdom. His Majesty was so
sensible of the disorders in the Company's administration, that the
consideration of that subject was no less than six times recommended to
this House in speeches from the throne.

The result of the Parliamentary inquiries has been, that the East India
Company was found totally corrupted, and totally perverted from the
purposes of its institution, whether political or commercial; that the
powers of war and peace given by the charter had been abused, by
kindling hostilities in every quarter for the purposes of rapine; that
almost all the treaties of peace they have made have only given cause to
so many breaches of public faith; that countries once the most
flourishing are reduced to a state of indigence, decay, and
depopulation, to the diminution of our strength, and to the infinite
dishonor of our national character; that the laws of this kingdom are
notoriously, and almost in every instance, despised; that the servants
of the Company, by the purchase of qualifications to vote in the General
Court, and, at length, by getting the Company itself deeply in their
debt, have obtained the entire and absolute mastery in the body by which
they ought to have been ruled and coerced. Thus their malversations in
office are supported, instead of being checked by the Company. The whole
of the affairs of that body are reduced to a most perilous situation;
and many millions of innocent and deserving men, who are under the
protection of this nation, and who ought to be protected by it, are
oppressed by a most despotic and rapacious tyranny. The Company and
their servants, having strengthened themselves by this confederacy, set
at defiance the authority and admonitions of this House employed to
reform them; and when this House had selected certain principal
delinquents, whom they declared it the duty of the Company to recall,
the Company held out its legal privileges against all ref