ART. XII. Mr Burke's Speech, on the motion made for Papers, relative to the Directors, for charging the Nabob of Arcot's pri vate debts to Europeans, on the Reventies of the Carnatic, Februray 28, 1785. With an Appendix, containing feveral Documents. Octavo, 38. Dudfley, 1785.

THE fubject of this fpeech, is a letter written by the Court of Directors, and altered by the Board of India Controul, of the 15th of October 1784, directing a certain annual referve to be made from the revenues of the Nabob of Arcot, for the liquidation of his debts to private individuals, and to the English Eaft India Company. The meafure was objected to by the Court of Directors, as placing credits of a private and a public nature upon the fame footing, or rather giving the former a preference over the latter. It was afterwards made a fubject of animadverfion in both houfes of parliament, and papers were moved for, by Mr. Fox and the Earl of Carlifle, tending to lead to a farther inquiry into the fubject. A negative was put upon the motion by the friends of administration.

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Various arguments were urged by Mr. Dundas, the minifter, who took the lead in this meafure, and who fingly ftood up in its deferice upon this occafion, to prove the rectitude and wifdom of the conduct that had been adopted. It was generally admitted in the course of the debate, that two denominations of the debt, the confolidated debt of 1767, and the cavalry loan, were not liable to any confiderable exception. The debt of 1777 was of a very questionable But if adminiftration had beftowed their patronage upon the two former, and left the creditors of 1777 unprotected, they would naturally have thrown themfelves upon the Nabob, and might poffibly have been the first order of creditors that would have been paid inftead of the laft. This prince had often pleaded in excufe of his arrears to the company, that he was harraffed by the application of his private creditors; and this plea could no otherwife be taken away in time to come, than by giving all the creditors a profpect of fatisfaction, fooner or later, in proportion to their merits. The new regulations that had been adoptèd in the firft feffion of the prefent parliament, were intended to introduce a more strict and honourable order of affairs in the territories of the Eaft India Company. But it had been the practice of all wife legiflators to exclude retrofpection from their inftitutions, and not at once to cut off those profits, however unreasonable and difproportionate, which were fanctified by cuftom and made venerable by the feal of prescription. All wife fyftems of reform were intended to operate infenfibly

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and by degrees; and whatever were violent in its march, and loud in its promifes, might be expected to be neither autpi cious nor permanent in the execution. With refpect to the charge of collufion between the creditors and the Board of Controul, Mr. Dundas treated it with fome degree of ridicule. He faid it was not the first time that his conduct had been mifreprefented. It had been faid, and exactly with the fame degree of truth, that he had received a large fum of money from Sir Thomas Rumbold, upon a particular oc cafion. But he had flept perfectly quiet and ferene under the former charge, and he trusted he fhould preferve his temper equally unruffled from the prefent accufation. In fine, with respect to the enquiry propofed, be cautioned the Houfe against fuddenly imbibing fentiments of diftruft against a Board they had fo lately inftituted. If the Houfe thought, after all they had heard, that the Board had acted criminally, they ought not to let them continue a moment longer in their fituations; but if otherwife, he called on them for at manly and decifive fupport. He oppofed, to the finifter defigns and interested views of men, who, provided they could thruft them from their fituations, cared not by what means they affected it, the characters and flake of the prefent.commiffioners, who had their reputation, their political exiftence,, and their future profpects pledged with the public for their rectitude and integrity.

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But it is eafy to find plaufible arguments in defence of any mode of procedure. We are not without our fufpicions, that the particular favour that was extended to the creditors of 1777, originated in a kind of fecret cabal of Mr. Benfield, principal creditor, Mr. Richard Atkinfon, his friend, and reprefentative, and the prefent administration. Mr. Benfield's claim amounted to 400,000l. yielding an income, at fix per cent. of 24,000l. one farthing of which had probably never been advanced, and which was a mere douceur for fecret fervices under the name of a loan. As in the bold, and interprising measure of Mr. Fox, little profpect had been left that any part of this debt would ever be recovered, Mr. Benfield would probably have been happy to come down handfomely for the affiftance of minifters in the critical bufinefs of the general election, in order to fecure to himself the rCmainder of his fpoils.

The fpeech of Mr. Burke has one characteriftic, which runs through all the performances of this celebrated orator. He has puhed the matter farther than any of the fpeakers. that went before him; he has attacked the debt of 1767 and the cavalry loan, which paffed mufter with them, and while, they feemed inclined to reprefent the measure as a mere

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piece of impolicy on the part of administration, he has held it up as a mafs of flagitioufnefs and deformity without a parallel either in ancient or modern times. In a word, every thing comes to us magnified in its outline and aggravated in its features through the telescope that is prefented to us by Mr. Burke, and we cannot but perceive through all the plaufibility of his rhetoric, that many circumstances grow into crimes under his hand, that before were merely indifferent, infipid, and unmeaning.

We would not, however, lead our readers to imagine, that there is any thing unproportioned and unfupported in the fpeech before us. Every thing is borne out with an energy of reasoning and a vehmence of rhetoric of which, while they both rife to the highest pitch; it is difficult to decide whether it be the one or the other that carries conviction with the most irrefiftable force to our hearts. As an example of this, we will lay before our readers the animadverfions of Mr. Burke, upon the debt of the Nabob to the Company itself, and from this fpecimen they may eafily infer what colours he is able to throw upon the obfcure and unafcertained claims of individuals.

Thofe who gave this preference to private claims, confider the Company's as a lawful demand; elfe, why did they pretend to provide for it? On their own principles they are condemned.

But I, Sir, who profefs to speak to your understanding and to your confcience, and to brush away from this bufinefs all falfe colours, all falfe appellations, as well as falfe facts, do pofitively deny that the Carnatic owes a fhilling to the Company; whatever the Company may be indebted to that undone country. It owes nothing to the Company, for this plain and fimple reafon-The territory charged with the debt is their own. To say that their revenues fall fhort, and owe them money, is to fay, they are in debt to themfelves, which is only talking nonfenfe. The fact is, that by the invafion of an enemy, and the ruin of the country, the Company, either in its own name or the names of the Nabob of Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore, has loft for feveral years what it might have looked to receive from its own eftate. If men were allowed to credit them. felves, upon fuch principles any one might foon grow rich by this mode of accounting. A flood comes down upon a man's estate in the Bedford Level of a thousand pounds a year, and drowns his rents for ten years. The Chancellor would put that man into the hands of a trustee, who would gravely make up his books, and for this lofs credit himself in his account for a debt due to him of 10,000l. It is, however, on this principle the Company makes up its des mands on the Carnatic. In peace they go the full length, and indeed more than the full length, of what the people can bear for current establishments; then they are abfurd enough to confolidate all the calamities of war into debts; to metamorphofe the devaftations of the country into demands upon its future production. What is

this but to avow a refolution utterly to destroy their own country, and to force the people to pay for their fufferings, to a government which has proved unable to protect either the fhare of the hufbandman or their own? In every leafe of a farm, the invafion of an enemy, inftead of forming a demand for arrear, is a release of rent; nor for that releafe is it at all neceffary to fhow, that the invafion has left nothing to the occupier of the, foil; though in the prefent ca.e it would be too eafy to prove that melancholy fact. I therefore applauded my right honourable friend, who, when he canvaffed the Company's accounts, as a preliminary to a bill that ought not to ftand on falfehood of any kind, fixed his difcerning eye, and his deciding hand, on thefe debts of the Company, from the Nabob of Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore, and at one itroke expunged them all, as utterly irrecoverable; he might have added as utterly unfounded.' : Mr. Burke contrafts the lavish donation of the Board of Controul in the example before us with the bill of Mr. Pitt of the last feffion, appointing Commiffioners to enquire into the fees and perquifites of the clerks and commis in the public offices, and the contraft is illustrated with an imagery that is admirable and unequalled.

I confefs I feel a degree of difguft, almoft leading to despair, at the manner in which we are acting in the great exigencies of our country. There is now a bill in this Houfe, appointing a rigid inquilition into the minutest detail of our offices at home. The collection of fixteen millions annually; a collection on which the public greatnefs, fafety, and credit have their reliance: the whole order of criminal jurifprudence, which holds together fociety itself, have at no time obliged us to call forth fuch powers; no, nor any thing like them. There is not a principle of the law and conftitution of this country that is not fubverted to favour the execution of that project. And for what is all this apparatus of bustle and terror? Is it becaufe any thing fubftantial is expected from it? No. The fir and bustle itself is the end propofed. The eye-fervants of a flortighted mafter will employ themselves, not on what is most effential to his affairs, but on what is nearest to his ken. Great difficulties have given a just, value to economy, whatever it may coft us. But where is he to exert his talents? At home to be fure: for where else can he obtain a profitable credit for their exertion? It is nothing to him, whether the object on which he works under our eye be promiling or not. If he does not obtain any public benefit, he may make regulations without end. Thole are fure to pay in prefent expectation, whilft the effect is at a distance, and may be the concern of other times, and other men. On thefe, principles he chooses to fuppofe (for he does not pretend more than to fuppofe) a naked poflibility, that he fhall draw fome refource out of crumbs dropped from the trenchers of penury; that fomething fhall be laid in flore from the fhort allowance of revenue officers, overloaded with duty, and famifhed for want of bread; by a reduction from officers who are at this very hour ready to batter the treafury with what breaks through ftone walls, for an inereafe of their appointments. From the ENG. REV. SEPT. 1785, 1

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marrowless bones of these skeleton establishments, by the ufe of every fort of cutting, and of every fort of fretting tool, he flatters himself that he may chip and rafp an empirical alimentary powder, to diet into fome fimilitude of health and fubftance the languishing chimeras of fraudulent reformation.

'Whilft he is thus employed according to his policy and to his tafte, he has not leifure to enquire into thofe abufes in India that are drawing off money by millions from the treafures of this country, which are exhaufting the vital juices from members of the state, where the public inanition is far more forely felt than in the local exchequer of England. Not content with winking at these abuses, whilst he attempts to fqueeze the laborious ill-paid drudges of Eng ith revenue, he lavishes in one act of corrupt prodigality, upon those who never ferved the public in any honeft occupation at all, an annual income equal to two thirds of the whole collection of the revenues of this kingdom.

Actuated by the fame principle of choice, he has now on the anvil another scheme, full of difficulty and defperate hazard, which totally alters the commercial relation of two kingdoms; and what end loever it shall have, may bequeath a legacy of heart-burning and difcontent to one of the countries, perhaps to both, to be perpetuated to the lateft pofterity. This project is alfo undertaken on the hope of profit. It is provided, that out of fome (I know not what) emains of the Irish hereditary revenue, a fund at fome time, and of fome fort, fhould be applied to the protection of the Irish trade. Here we are commanded again to talk our faith, and to perfuade ourfelves, that out of the furplus of deficiency, out of the favings of habitual and fyftematic prodigality, the minifter of wonders will provide fupport for this nation, finking under the mountainous load of two hundred and thirty millions of debt. But whilft we look with pain at his defperate and laborious trifling; whilft we are apprehenfive that he will break his back in ftooping to pick up chaff and traws, he recovers himself at an elaftic bound, and with a broad-caft fwing of his arm, he fquanders over his Indian field á fum far greater than the clear produce of the whole hereditary revenue of the kingdom of Ireland.

We will only add to thefe extracts a fhort paffage or two, in which the power of refined and inimitable fatire is carried perhaps to a greater length than by any of thofe poets who have rifen higheft in this fpecies of compofition.

Our wonderful minifter, as you all know, formed a new plan, a plan infigne recens alio indictum ore, a plan for fupporting the freedom of our conftitution by court intrigues, and for removing its corruptions by Indian delinquency. To carry that bold paradoxial defign into execution, fufficient funds and apt inftruments became necellary. You are perfectly fenfible that a Parliamentary Reform occupies his thoughts day and night, as an effential member in this extraordinary project. In his anxious researches upon this fubject, natural instinct, as well as found policy, would direct his eyes, and fettle his choice on Paul Benfield, as the grand parliamentary reformer to whom the whole choir of reformers bow, and to whom

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