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

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 duties of government were sold, or they were the price paid for acts of partiality, or, finally, they were sums of money extorted from the givers by the terrors of power. Against the system of presents, therefore, the new commission was in general opinion particularly pointed. In the commencement of reformation, at a period when a rapacious conquest had overpowered and succeeded to a corrupt government, an act of indemnity might have been thought advisable; perhaps a new account ought to have been opened; all retrospect