formers in the house naturally concluded that the same arts had
been practised in obtaining the new charter of the East India company,
which had been granted so much against the sense of the nation. Their
books were subjected to the same committee that carried on the former
inquiry, and a surprising scene of venality and corruption was soon
disclosed. It appeared that the company, in the course of the preceding
year, had paid near ninety thousand rounds in secret services, and that
sir Thomas Cooke, one of the directors, and a member of the house, had
been the chief managers of this infamous commerce. Cooke, refusing to
answer, was committed to the Tower, and a bill of pains and penalties
brought in obliging him to discover how the sum mentioned in the report
of the committee had been distributed. The bill was violently opposed
in the upper house by the duke of Leeds, as being contrary to law
and equity, and furnishing a precedent of a dangerous nature. Cooke,
agreeably to his own petition, being brought to the bar of the house of
lords, declared that he was ready and willing to make a full discovery,
in case he might be favoured with an indemnifying vote to secure him
against all actions and suits, except those of the East India company
which he had never injured. The lords complied with his request and
passed a bill for this purpose, to which the commons added a penal
clause, and the former was laid aside.

EXAMINATION OF COOKE, ACTON, AND OTHERS.

When the king went to the house to give the royal assent to the
money-bills, he endeavoured to discourage this inquiry by telling
the parliament that the season of the year was far advanced, and the
circumstances of affairs extremely pressing, he therefore desired they
would despatch such business as they should think of most importance
to the public, as he should put an end to the session in a few days.
Notwithstanding this shameful interposition, both houses appointed
a joint committee to lay open the complicated scheme of fraud and
iniquity. Cooke, on his first examination, confessed that he
had delivered tallies for ten thousand pounds to Francis Tyssen,
deputy-governor, for the special service of the company; an equal sum
to Richard Acton, for employing his interest in preventing a new
settlement, and endeavouring to establish the old company; besides two
thousand pounds by way of interest and as a further gratuity; a thousand
guineas to colonel Fitzpatrick, fiv