The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII | Page 7

office,
called the Board of Trade, for the subordinate management of their
commercial concerns, and appointed eleven of the senior servants to fill
the commission.
[Sidenote: Object of powers to Governor-General and Council.]
The powers given by the act to the new Governor-General and Council
had for their direct object the kingdom of Bengal and its dependencies.
Within that sphere (and it is not a small one) their authority extended
over all the Company's concerns of whatever description. In matters of
peace and war it seems to have been meant that the other Presidencies
should be subordinate to their board. But the law is loose and defective,
where it professes to restrain the subordinate Presidencies from making
war without the consent and approbation of the Supreme Council. They
are left free to act without it _in cases of imminent necessity, or where
they shall have received special orders from the Company_. The first
exception leaves it open to the subordinate to judge of the necessity of
measures which, when taken, bind or involve the superior: the second
refers a question of peace or war to two jurisdictions, which may give

different judgments. In both instances cases in point have occurred.[1]
With regard to their local administration, their powers were
exceedingly and dangerously loose and undetermined. Their powers
were not given directly, but in words of reference, in which neither the
objects related to nor the mode of the relation were sufficiently
expressed. Their legislative and executive capacities were not so
accurately drawn, and marked by such strong and penal lines of
distinction, as to keep these capacities separate. Where legislative and
merely executive powers were lodged in the same hands, the legislative,
which is the larger and the more ready for all occasions, was constantly
resorted to. The Governor-General and Council, therefore, immediately
gave constructions to their ill-defined authority which rendered it
perfectly despotic,--constructions which if they were allowed, no action
of theirs ought to be regarded as criminal.
Armed as they were with an authority in itself so ample, and by abuse
so capable of an unlimited extent, very few, and these very insufficient
correctives, were administered. Ample salaries were provided for them,
which indeed removed the necessity, but by no means the inducements
to corruption and oppression. Nor was any barrier whatsoever opposed
on the part of the natives against their injustice, except the Supreme
Court of Judicature, which never could be capable of controlling a
government with such powers, without becoming such a government
itself.
There was, indeed, a prohibition against all concerns in trade to the
whole Council, and against all taking of presents by any in authority. A
right of prosecution in the King's Bench was also established; but it was
a right the exercise of which is difficult, and in many, and those the
most weighty cases, impracticable. No considerable facilities were
given to prosecution in Parliament; nothing was done to prevent
complaint from being far more dangerous to the sufferer than injustice
to the oppressor. No overt acts were fixed, upon which corruption
should be presumed in transactions of which secrecy and collusion
formed the very basis; no rules of evidence nor authentic mode of
transmission were settled in conformity to the unalterable
circumstances of the country and the people.

[Sidenote: Removal of servants.]
One provision, indeed, was made for restraining the servants, in itself
very wise and substantial: a delinquent once dismissed, could not be
restored, but by the votes of three fourths of the Directors and three
fourths of the proprietors: this was well aimed. But no method was
settled for bringing delinquents to the question of removal: and if they
should be brought to it, a door lay wide open for evasion of the law,
and for a return into the service, in defiance of its plain intention,--that
is, by resigning to avoid removal; by which measure this provision of
the act has proved as unoperative as all the rest. By this management a
mere majority may bring in the greater delinquent, whilst the person
removed for offences comparatively trivial may remain excluded
forever.
[Sidenote: Council-General]
The new Council nominated in the act was composed of two totally
discordant elements, which soon distinguished themselves into
permanent parties. One of the principal instructions which the three
members of the Council sent immediately from England, namely,
General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, carried out with
them was, to "_cause the strictest inquiry to be made into all
oppressions and abuses_," among which the practice of receiving
presents from the natives, at that time generally charged upon men in
power, was principally aimed at.
Presents to any considerable value were justly reputed by the
legislature, not as marks of attention and respect, but as bribes or
extortions, for which either the beneficial and gratuitous