transaction, when it was known? The very reverse. On the same 3d of
March, the Directors declare, "upon an _impartial examination_ of the
whole conduct of our late Governor and Council of Fort George [Madras],
and on the fullest consideration, that the said Governor and Council
have, _in notorious violation of the trust_ reposed in them, manifestly
_preferred the interest of private individuals to that of the Company_,
in permitting the assignment of the revenues of certain valuable
districts, to a very large amount, from the Nabob to individuals"; and
then, highly aggravating their crimes, they add,--"We order and direct
that you do examine, in the most impartial manner, all the
above-mentioned transactions, and that you _punish_, by suspension,
degradation, dismission, or otherwise, as to you shall seem meet, all
and every such servant or servants of the Company who may by you be
found guilty of any of the above offences." "We had" (say the
Directors) "the mortification to find that the servants of the Company,
who had been _raised, supported, and owed their present opulence to the
advantages_ gained in such service, have in this instance most
_unfaithfully betrayed_ their trust, _abandoned_ the Company's interest,
and _prostituted_ its influence to accomplish the _purposes of
individuals, whilst the interest of the Company is almost wholly
neglected_, and payment to us rendered extremely precarious." Here,
then, is the rock of approbation of the Court of Directors, on which the
right honorable gentleman says this debt was founded. Any member, Mr.
Speaker, who should come into the House, on my reading this sentence of
condemnation of the Court of Directors against their unfaithful
servants, might well imagine that he had heard an harsh, severe,
unqualified invective against the present ministerial Board of Control.
So exactly do the proceedings of the patrons of this abuse tally with
those of the actors in it, that the expressions used in the condemnation
of the one may serve for the reprobation of the other, without the