ness not private interests to interfere in this enquiry; no one set of men to profeet and save; no other to harass and destroy. Let it not be confined to the mere disaster in the Carnatic; nor limit your investigation to points so little in the important whole of the business; to the defence of a pass; to the weakness of one pace, and the quantity of stores in another. These are the mere pustules, the eruptions on the skin, and while you are intent on the examination of these, you neglect the real seat of the disease, which is in the blood, from the corruption of which these appearances have their rise. The wisdom of government ought to be applied and exerted, not so much to the care as to the prevention of the disease. It ought to have the sense and the penetration to anticipate consequences in their causes;-to see them in their approach, and to ward off, by seasonable preventives, the impending blow. This is the true duty as well as the virtue of government; and it is in the exercise of this salutary wisdom that it is able to give security and happiness to the governed. Let us then, in this enquiry, go into the whole of this important business. Let nothing be concealed; but let us trace the conduct of those subordinate governments from the date of the last charter to the present hour: and let us enter on this enquiry with a determined spirit to screen no delinquent from punishment, however high; to persecute no innocent man, however unfortunate. What will be the consequences of this conduct? You will re-unite the nations that surround you in bonds of trust and friendship. You will shew your own servants that nothing but the faithful discharge of their duty can recommend them to reward, or secure to them the enjoyment of the fortunes they may acquire. You will teach the people that live under you, that it is their interest to be your subjects; and that, inread of courting the French, the Dutch, the Danes, or any other state under Heaven, to protect them, they ought only to be anxious to preserve their conrection with you; because, from you only they had to expect public proceeding, public trial, public justice. Do this, and you give a necessary example to your servants; you give happiness to your subjects; you give confidence to your neighbours: you give despair to your enemies. Europe would stand astonished and awed by your conduct. They [VOL. XXII.]

would see a system of government formidable from its purity, permanent from its use. In all justice, as in all govern ment, the best and surest test of excellence, is the publicity of its administra tion; for, wherever there is secrecy, there is implied injustice. When the eyes of men went along with the judge, when they could see and investigate the procedure, then the justice was complete. Even in the awful judgment of the world, at the last day, we are taught, in the Scriptures, that God will condescend to manifest his ways to man. His judgment will be public. What, then! shall poor, finite, limited man, incumbered with passions and prejudices, presume to judge in secret of man, when his Almighty Parent declares that even his ways shall be public and open! We are called upon by every argument of morality and of policy, by every precept of religion and of duty, to make that justice, which we reverence, as public as the noon-day sun. It has been the sentiment and the sense of all ages. "Let me fight with Jupiter," says Ajax," but give me day-light." Let me have condemnation or let me have acquittal in the face of day. The acquittal that is secret cannot be honourable; it leaves a stain even upon innocence. The condemnation that is secret cannot be just; it leaves a prejudice in favour of the criminal injurious to the tribunal by whom he was tried. The members of this committée must be pained at the idea of their being forced to sit in judgment, and to acquit or condemn in private. He had been for some weeks engaged in a com mittee up stairs, which was open; and it had been the greatest consolation to his mind that it was so; since in judging of the conduct of the judges in India, he knew that he was acting in the face of men, and that his behaviour was known tỏ the world. But what must have been his disquietude and anxiety if he had been appointed by that House to judge and determine in the dark? At the same time the very secrecy itself would be destroyed in the end; for in case of a report being made by this committee, which should induce the House to charge members of that House with high crimes and misdemeanors, and impeach them before the Lords, or move an address for their trial in the courts. below, the House would think it necessary, before their agreement with such a report, to call for all the proceedings of that committee, and conse [K]

quently all the secrets must come out. There, therefore, could be no reason for a committee of secrecy; a committee of selection it ought to be, and such he most earnestly recommended to the noble lord; and called upon him, by every argument of policy and prudence, of liberality and of justice, to adopt the latter.

Mr. Jenkinson contended, the hon. gentleman had mistaken the object of the proposed enquiry; for it was not a judicial one: it was not meant that the committee should decide on the conduct of any man, much less proceed to punish; their business would be simply to report facts, without giving any opinion upon them; and if those facts should appear to the House as grounds of accusation against any individual, he would then have an opportunity of defending himself, and the proceedings against him would be public. It would even be the duty of the members, when they went into this committee, to presume that no man was guilty, and through the whole of their proceedings to confine themselves simply to facts. As to what the hon. gentleman said, in respect to proceedings in the dark, could not be applicable to this committee, for their proceedings would all come out in the end, if any suspicion should arise to induce the House to call for their minutes; therefore, the hon. gentleman's objection to secrecy was removed; and as unquestionably a committee of the nature proposed, could proceed with greater dispatch than any other, it was evidently on that account to be preferred.

Mr. Fox said, that if he had any doubts before, whether his hon. friend was right in opposing a committee of secrecy, those doubts must have been removed by the hon. gentleman who spoke last; it clearly appearing that the very nature and duty of the proposed inquiry had been entirely misunderstood, and consequently the execution of it was not likely to prove very satisfactory, if it was not under the controul of the public eye. The hon. gentleman had said that the committee was only to report facts; very true; but those facts, it should be remembered, were causes. The motion said that the causes of the war in the Carnatic were to be inquired into; now in stating facts of that kind, it was rather difficult not to give an opinion along with them. If the noble lord would consent to an inquiry he had talked of the other day, into the causes of the American war, and would let him have

the naming of the secret committee, as his lordship would no doubt have of that now in question, he would undertake that nothing should be reported but facts in the hon. gentleman's acceptation of them: and yet the noble lord would not be inclined to have them received for such, he would rather call them mere opinions; for instance, perhaps they might report that the causes of the American war were the influence of the crown and the corruption of parliament: or perhaps the obstinacy, the impotence, or the treachery, of mini sters. In that case, his lordship and the hon. gentleman would both be inclined to think the committee had given along with the facts they were to inquire about, opi. nion and accusation too. It was true, indeed, if the proposed committee should judge of causes as the noble lord, in his simple and ingenious stile of reasoning, sometimes did; nothing but facts would, in all probability, be reported, for they would only inform the House that Hy. der Ally was the cause of Hyder Ally's invasion.

The hon. gentleman had said that the committee was to presume that nobody was guilty; a very strange presumption indeed that would be; our settlements in the East Indies were reduced from a most glorious style of prosperity, almost to ruin, and yet nobody was in fault! Natural causes only had produced such melancholy effects. This was an idea he was not surprised to find entertained and professed by the hon. gentleman, for it was evidently his interest, and that of his col leagues in administration, to make the world believe if possible that a mighty empire might be torn to pieces and ruined, yet nobody be in fault; this was peculiarly their interest to day, when it must be re merabered that in the last week this coun try met the completion of her disgrace: that the last Tuesday's Gazette proclaimed our degradation to the world.

[Here the House appeared astonished, and anxious to hear the hon. member explain himself.] He took notice of this, and said, he alluded to the prohibition of our fleets to attack the French in the Baltic He declared that the proclamation, con tained in the Gazette of Tuesday seven night, did absolutely abandon the great boast and pride of the nation, the empire of the seas. It gave up not only all claim to the pretended sovereignty which w enjoyed, but also in part acknowledged superior power in a particular sea. Thi

he considered as the death-stroke of our naval grandeur and importance. From that moment we became an humbled and circumscribed empire. In that proclamation our ships of war are directed not to fight with any of our enemies in the Baltic. Whatever may be the provocation, whatever may be the danger or the necessity, they must not dare to fight in that sea, because it is disagreeable to the empress of Russia. We are the only state, of all those that are at war, who have condescended, or who have been forced, to make this submission. Upon this a whisper went round the Treasury-bench, which Mr. Fox observing, declared they were inquiring for the contents of the Gazette. It was rather extraordinary that ministers did not know what was published by their own authority; but, from the complection of Gazettes, he concluded it was a paper too libellous and calumnious for their reading; and, therefore, gentlemen did not take it in, or know any thing about it.

He must now take notice of something that fell from an hon. gentleman who spoke early in the debate, concerning his motive in coming into parliament; they were undoubtedly very fair and honourable ones; but he was a little mistaken, in supposing, that the noble lord thought nothing of a single vote. To convince the hon. gentleman of this, he would tell him an anecdote of a secret committee, something similar to that now proposed, of which he had the honour to be a member. He said, he had eight years ago not been a little concerned in business of somewhat a similar nature to what would now be the object of inquiry; and that in the debates upon the supposed wealth of a noble lord, now no more, the late lord Clive, that noble lord was accused of peculation. At that time from the inquiry, he, for one, was induced to think that the noble lord had possessed himself of 260,000l. in an improper manner, and that he ought to refund it. In this opinion he was strenuously supported by the noble lord in the blue ribbon, and another person, whose situation at the time made his conduct particularly laudable and becoming, (the person he alluded to was the present Lord Chancellor, who was, in 1773, Attorney General); he was supported also by the present Speaker; and yet with all the weight and power of this assistance, the noble lord, who was accused, found means to render their endeavours to make him an example fruitless; and what was still more extraordi

nary, the very same lord of the Treasury, who had joined him in endeavouring to obtain justice against lord Clive, in a very short time afterwards raised that noble lord to one of the highest confidential honours the crown could bestow, by appointing him lord lieutenant of a county; and lord Clive, who had, for a long time before, been in the habit of opposing administration, voted with them, and brought all his connections with him, to vote for them ever afterwards. After stating these facts, Mr. Fox was wonderfully pleasant on lord Clive's joining administration, declaring, that he could account for it no other way, than by supposing that it arose from that noble lord's pity for a ministry, which he saw was so extremely weak, that it could not even carry a question of justice against him; and, therefore, he threw the weight of his influence, and all the support he could give into its scale, with a view to strengthen it.

The above inquiry furnished also a very convincing proof of the inefficacy of inquiring in that House when his Majesty's ministers intended it to be a mockery of justice. They began it with the view of imposing on the people, while they were secretly employed in screening and protecting the men whom they publicly blamed. Such would always be the nature and the end of inquiries when they were conducted with secrecy. He, therefore, most earnestly recommended a select committee as the only means by which substantial justice could be obtained, and by which the affairs of this country in India could be in any degree restored to their former state.

General Smith said, that he believed the state of our affairs was such in that quarter of the world, that the noble lord must not dare to trifle and sport with the public. We were now in the very last crisis of our fate, and the existence of our territories in the East must depend on the spirit and the policy of the measures which were now to be pursued. It was for this reason that he wished to see the inquiry extended to the Mahratta war, and to all the conduct of the presidencies since the estab lishment of the last regulations.

Mr. Dempster rejoiced at the approaching inquiry, but recommended it to the noble lord not to make a bargain with the Company for the renewal of their charter for any length of time just at this crisis, which he described as a most unfit seasonfor it, but to continue the exclusive trade

for another year by a short Bill. He said, the territorial possessions of the Company, as well in the North as in the South, tottered to their foundations just now; it would be equally injurious to the public and the Company, therefore, to demand a large sum of money from them, while the state of their affairs was so unsettled.

Lord North rose to reply to Mr. Fox. His lordship began by saying, that if the committee should find upon inquiry that the war in the Carnatic was owing to the rapacity of Hyder Ally, or the avarice of any of the Company's servants, they would undoubtedly say so; but if they were to mix opinion with their report; if they were to go farther, and enter into an investigation and arraignment of the conduct of particular persons, they would exceed the powers given them by his motion: all that he conceived to be their duty, was, to report that they had examined such and such witnesses, read such and such papers, treaties, &c. and so on; and upon that report it would be the business of the House to proceed; therefore, he could not agree that they were to report opinions. With regard to the secresy of the committee, he repeated it, that the only reason for his wishing the committee to be a secret one was, that he conceived the business might be done with much greater dispatch, and the reason why he had not extended his motion, in the manner the hon. gentleman, who spoke last but one, had stated, was, because he wished to point the inquiry at so much and no more of the affairs of India as would justify a reasonable hope that it might be completed and reported in a moderate compass of time; it was not that he did not think the affairs of any other district of India besides the Carnatic worthy of notice; on the contrary, he thought the affairs of the Bengal government and of every other part of India called for inquiry, but he meant to take them up one by one, for the sake of greater ease and accuracy; and, considering the importance of the late transactions in the Carnatic, that district offered itself as the first and fittest ground of inquiry. With regard to what the hon. gentleman who spoke last had stated, as to this being an improper time to make a new bargain with the Company, he could not help differing in opinion. Undoubtedly it was an improper time to expect a large fine as the price of the renewal of the charter; but he conceived it would be of essential service that it should

be known abroad, that matters were settled in a more permanent manner between the Company and government than by short bill, from year to year only. In an swer to what Mr. Fox had said about the Gazette and the proclamation, inserted last Tuesday, his lordship declared, the nor thern powers had long since publicly as serted their resolution to preserve the peace of the Baltic, and that this nation had been materially benefitted by their adopting that measure. The preservation of our own interests, therefore, required, that we should prevent the violence, imprudence, or rapacity of the captain of any privateer, or letter of marque, from violating the resolution of the northern powers. As to the hon. gentleman's charges against the Gazette, as a paper not to be depended upon, he defied the hon. gentleman, or any person, to prove that government had at any time published what was untrue in the Gazette; extracts of letters they had given; but every gentleman must be aware, that during a war, extracts only could be printed of several of the letters received from his Majesty's officers commanding abroad.

Mr. Fox ordered the motion to be read; it turned out that they were not only "to inquire into the causes of the present war," but also directed, in the conclusion, "to report their observations upon it." The hon. gentleman ridiculed the noble lord for not understanding the motion which he had made; and for saying that men could ascertain the causes of the war without exercising an opinion. He concluded, with moving an amendment, by leaving out the words "of secresy."

Mr. Burke seconded the motion. He said, that now the noble lord understood his case, he would certainly comply. He had been like a lawyer, he had spoken from a brief which he had not previously perused. It was often his misfortune to be obliged to defend measures which he did not advise; but now the appeal was made from Philip sleeping to Philip awake, he trusted he would adopt the amendment. The noble lord, he said, proved the neces sity of abandoning a committee of secrecy, and proposing one that should act under the inspection of others; for as he had misreported his own motion, how could he, if he should be one of the committee, fairly report their proceedings? In short, the predicament into which he had brought himself was this; he had attempted to impose upon the House, and on the world, a