payments, to their proprietors and government
together, but by six hundred and eight thousand
pounds, beyond what they had been before
their late territorial acquisitions. What
the gross revenue of those territorial acquisitions
was supposed to amount to, has already
been mentioned; and by an account brought
by the Cruttenden East Indiaman in 1769,
the neat revenue, clear of all deductions and
military charges, was stated at two millions
forty-eight thousand seven hundred and forty-seven
pounds. They were said, at the same
time, to possess another revenue, arising partly
from lands, but chiefly from the customs
established at their different settlements, amounting
to four hundred and thirty-nine
thousand pounds. The profits of their trade,
too, according to the evidence of their chairman
before the house of commons, amounted,
at this time, to at least four hundred thousand
pounds a-year; according to that of their
accountant, to at least five hundred thousand;
according to the lowest account, at least equal
to the highest dividend that was to be paid to
their proprietors. So great a revenue might
certainly have afforded augmentation of six
hundred and eight thousand pounds in their
annual payments; and, at the same time, have
left a large sinking fund, sufficient for the
speedy reduction of their debt. In 1773,
however, their debts, instead of being reduced,
were augmented by an arrear to the treasury
in the payment of the four hundred thousand
pounds; by another to the custom-house
for duties unpaid; by a large debt to the
bank, for money borrowed; and by a fourth,
for bills drawn upon them from India, and
wantonly accepted, to the amount of upwards
of twelve hundred thousand pounds. The
distress which these accumulated claims
brought upon them, obliged them not only to
reduce all at once their dividend to six per
cent. but to throw themselves upon the mercy
of government, and to supplicate, first, a release
from the further payment of the stipulated
four hundred thousand pounds a-year;
and, secondly, a loan of fourteen hundred
thousand, to save them from immediate bankruptcy.
The great increase of their fortune
had, it seems, only served to furnish their servants
with a pretext for greater profusion, and
a cover for greater malversation, than in proportion
even to that increase of fortune. The
conduct of their servants in India, and the general
state of their affairs both in India and in
Europe, became the subject of a parliamentary
inquiry: in consequence of which, several
very important alterations were made in
the constitution of their government, both at
home and abroad. In India, their principal
settlements of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta,
which had before been altogether independent
of one another, were subjected to a governor-general,
assisted by a council of four
assessors, parliament assuming to itself the
first nomination of this governor and council,
who were to reside at Calcutta; that city having
now become, what Madras was before, the
most important of the English settlements in
India. The court of the Mayor of Calcutta,
originally instituted for the trial of mercantile
causes, which arose in the city and neighbourhood,
had gradually extended its jurisdiction
with the extension of the empire. It was now
reduced and confined to the original purpose
of its institution. Instead of it, a new supreme
court of judicature was established, consisting
of a chief justice and three judges, to
be appointed by the crown. In Europe, the
qualification necessary to entitle a proprietor
to vote at their general courts was raised, from
five hundred pounds, the original price of a
share in the stock of the company, to a thousand
pounds. In order to vote upon this qualification,
too, it was declared necessary, that
he should have possessed it, if acquired by his
own purchase, and not by inheritance, for at
least one year, instead of six months, the term
requisite before. The court of twenty-four
directors had before been chosen annually;
but it was now enacted, that each director
should, for the future, be chosen for four
years; six of them, however, to go out of office
by rotation every year, and not be capable
of being re-chosen at the election of the six
new directors for the ensuing year. In consequence
of these alterations, the courts, both
of the proprietors and directors, it was expected,
would be likely to act with more dignity
and steadiness than they had usually done before.
But it seems impossible, by any alterations,
to render those courts, in any respect,
fit to govern, or even to share in the government
of a great empire; because the greater
part of their members must always have too
little interest in the prosperity of that empire,
to give any serious attention to what may promote
it. Frequently a man of great, sometimes
even a man of small fortune, is willing
to purchase a thousand pounds share in India
stock, merely for the influence which he expects
to acquire by a vote in the court of proprietors.
It gives him a share, though not
in the plunder, yet in the appointment of the
plunderers of India; the court of directors,
though they make that appointment, being necessarily
more or less under the influence of
the proprietors, who not only elect those directors,
but sometimes over-rule the appointments
of their servants in India. Provided
he can enjoy this influence for a few years, and
thereby provide for a certain number of his
friends, he frequently cares little about the dividend,
or even about the value of the stock
upon which his vote in founded. About the
prosperity of the great empire, in the government
of which that vote gives him a share, he
seldom cares at all. No other sovereigns ever
were, or, from the nature of things, ever could
be, so perfectly indifferent about the happiness