and then, as Moore justly says,
the self-kindling power of Fox's eloquence threw such fire into his
defence of the measure, that he forgot, and his hearers never found
out, that his views were not originally and spontaneously his own. The
novelty on which the great stress of discussion was laid was that
the Bill withdrew power from the Board of Directors, and vested the
Government for four years in a commission of seven persons named in
the Bill, and not removable by the House.

Burke was so convinced of the incurable iniquity of the Company, so
persuaded that it was not only full of abuses, but, as he said, one of
the most corrupt and destructive tyrannies that probably ever existed
in the world, as to be content with nothing short of the absolute
deprivation of its power. He avowed himself no lover of names, and
that he only contended for good government, from whatever quarter it
might come. But the idea of good government coming from the Company he
declared to be desperate and untenable. This intense animosity, which,
considering his long and close familiarity with the infamies of the
rule of the Company's servants, was not unnatural, must be allowed,
however, to have blinded him to the grave objections which really
existed to his scheme. In the first place, the Bill was indisputably
inconsistent with the spirit of his revered Constitution. For the
legislature to assume the power of naming the members of an executive
body was an extraordinary and mischievous innovation. Then, to put
patronage, which has been estimated by a sober authority at about
three hundred thousand pounds a year, into the hands of the House of
Commons, was still more mischievous and still less justifiable. Worst
of all, from the point of view of the projectors themselves, after a
certain time the nomination of the Commissioners would fall to the
Crown, and this might in certain contingencies increase to a most
dangerous extent the ascendancy of the royal authority. If Burke's
measure had been carried, moreover, the patronage would have been
transferred to a body much less competent than the Directors to
judge of the qualities required in the fulfilment of this or
that administrative charge. Indian promotion would have followed
parliamentary and party interest. In the hands of the Directors there
was at least a partial security, in their professional knowledge,
and their personal interest in the success of their government, that
places would not