ivy councillors, with one of the secretaries of state at
their head. The board were to be appointed by the King, and removable at
his pleasure. They were invested with the control of all the revenue,
and civil and military officers of the Company. The directors were
obliged to lay before them all papers relative to the management of
their affairs. The commissioners were to return the papers of the
directors within fourteen days, if approved of, or if not, to assign
their reasons. The despatches so agreed on, were then to be sent to
India.

It seems not improbable that this appointment was intended as the
preparative of the Earl for higher objects in the same department. At
all events, it directed his attention to Indian topics, and gave him the
due portion of that practical knowledge, without which genius only
bewilders, and enterprise is thrown away.

We have to fight our way against this biographer, who takes a rambling
and revolutionary view of all the chief transactions of the time. In
this spirit, he denies or doubts the necessity of the French war. We
deny that it was possible to avert it. It may be true, that if England
had been faithless to her compacts, and had suffered her allies to be
trampled on, she might, for awhile, have avoided actual collision. But,
could this have been done with honour; and what is national honour but a
national necessity? Holland, the old ally of England, was actually
invaded; and the first English troops that set foot upon the Continent,
were sent in compliance with our treaty, and for the simple protection
of our ally. No one will contend, and no one has ever contended, that
England had a right to make a government for France; or that the fury of
her factions, however they might startle and disgust mankind, was a
ground for teaching morality at the point of the sword. But there can be
no more legitimate cause of war than the obligations of treaties, the
protection of the weak against the powerful, and the preservation of the
general balance of European power.

In the instance of Holland, too, there was the additional and most
efficient reason, viz. that the possession of her ports and arsenals by
France must largely increase the danger of England. But when it is
further remembered, that France declared the determination to make war
upon all monarchies, that she aimed at establishing an universal
republic, that she pronounced all kings tyrants and all subjects slaves;
and that, of