from what I have seen
since, that the Government of India was at that time, one of the best
and most purely administered governments that ever existed, and one
which has provided most effectually for the happiness of the people over
which it is placed, it is impossible that I should be present when a
question of this description is discussed, without asking your
Lordships' attention for a very short time whilst I deliver my opinion
upon the plan which his Majesty's ministers have brought forward. I will
not follow the noble Marquis who opened the debate, into the
consideration of whether a chartered company be the best, or not,
calculated to carry on the government or the trade of an empire like
India, that is not the question to which I wish now to apply myself. But
whenever I hear of such discussions as this, I recall to my memory what
I have seen in that country--I recall to my memory the history of that
country for the last fifty or sixty years. I remember its days of
misfortune, and its days of glory, and call to mind the situation in
which it now stands. I remember that the government have conducted the
affairs of--I will not pretend to say how many millions of people,--they
have been calculated at 70,000,000, 80,000,000, 90,000,000, and
100,000,000--but certainly of an immense population, a population
returning an annual revenue of 20,000,000 l. sterling, and that
notwithstanding all the wars in which the empire has been engaged its
debt at this moment amounts only to 40,000,000 l., being no more than the
amount of two years revenue. I do not say that such a debt is desirable;
but at the same time I contend that it is a delusion on the people of
this country to tell them that that is a body unfit for government, and
unfit for trade, which has administered the affairs of India with so
much success for so many years, and which is at length to be put
down,--for I can use no other term,--upon the ground that it is an
institution calculated for the purposes neither of government nor trade.

My Lords, there is a great difference between the East India Company
governing India, and carrying on their trade with China as a joint-stock
company, and carrying on the same trade as monopolists. It was my
opinion, and the opinion of those who acted with me, that we ought, in
the first instance, at all events, to have endeavoured to have prevailed
upon them to continue trading with China as a joint-stock company. If at
this momen