The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII | Page 2

persons in power, without a regular public inquiry
into the good or evil tendency of any measure, or into the merit or
demerit of any person intrusted with the Company's concerns.

[Sidenote: Present laws relating to the East India Company, and
internal and external policy.]
The plan adopted by your Committee is, first, to consider the law
regulating the East India Company, as it now stands,--and, secondly, to
inquire into the circumstances of the two great links of connection by
which the territorial possessions in India are united to this kingdom,
namely, the Company's commerce, and the government exercised under
the charter and under acts of Parliament. The last [first] of these objects,
the commerce, is taken in two points of view: the external, or the direct
trade between India and Europe, and the internal, that is to say, the
trade of Bengal, in all the articles of produce and manufacture which
furnish the Company's investment.
The government is considered by your Committee under the like
descriptions of internal and external. The internal regards the
communication between the Court of Directors and their servants in
India, the management of the revenue, the expenditure of public money,
the civil administration, the administration of justice, and the state of
the army. The external regards, first, the conduct and maxims of the
Company's government with respect to the native princes and people
dependent on the British authority,--and, next, the proceedings with
regard to those native powers which are wholly independent of the
Company. But your Committee's observations on the last division
extend to those matters only which are not comprehended in the Report
of the Committee of Secrecy. Under these heads, your Committee refer
to the most leading particulars of abuse which prevail in the
administration of India,--deviating only from this order where the
abuses are of a complicated nature, and where one cannot be well
considered independently of several others.
[Sidenote: Second attempt made by Parliament for a reformation.]
Your Committee observe, that this is the second attempt made by
Parliament for the reformation of abuses in the Company's government.
It appears, therefore, to them a necessary preliminary to this second
undertaking, to consider the causes which, in their opinion, have
produced the failure of the first,--that the defects of the original plan

may be supplied, its errors corrected, and such useful regulations as
were then adopted may be further explained, enlarged, and enforced.
[Sidenote: Proceedings of session 1773.]
The first design of this kind was formed in the session of the year 1773.
In that year, Parliament, taking up the consideration of the affairs of
India, through two of its committees collected a very great body of
details concerning the interior economy of the Company's possessions,
and concerning many particulars of abuse which prevailed at the time
when those committees made their ample and instructive reports. But it
does not appear that the body of regulations enacted in that year, that is,
in the East India Act of the thirteenth of his Majesty's reign, were
altogether grounded on that information, but were adopted rather on
probable speculations and general ideas of good policy and good
government. New establishments, civil and judicial, were therefore
formed at a very great expense, and with much complexity of
constitution. Checks and counter-checks of all kinds were contrived in
the execution, as well as in the formation of this system, in which all
the existing authorities of this kingdom had a share: for Parliament
appointed the members of the presiding part of the new establishment,
the Crown appointed the judicial, and the Company preserved the
nomination of the other officers. So that, if the act has not fully
answered its purposes, the failure cannot be attributed to any want of
officers of every description, or to the deficiency of any mode of
patronage in their appointment. The cause must be sought elsewhere.
[Sidenote: Powers and objects of act of 1773, and the effects thereof.]
The act had in its view (independently of several detached regulations)
five fundamental objects.
1st. The reformation of the Court of Proprietors of the East India
Company.
2ndly. A new model of the Court of Directors, and an enforcement of
their authority over the servants abroad.

3rdly. The establishment of a court of justice capable of protecting the
natives from the oppressions of British subjects.
4thly. The establishment of a general council, to be seated in Bengal,
whose authority should, in many particulars, extend over all the British
settlements in India.
5thly. To furnish the ministers of the crown with constant information
concerning the whole of the Company's correspondence with India, in
order that they might be enabled to inspect the conduct of the Directors
and servants, and to watch over the execution of all parts of the act; that
they might be furnished with