I say, I well remember that bill, and every one of its honest and its
wise provisions. It is not true that this debt was ever protected or
enforced, or any revenue whatsoever set apart for it. It was left in
that bill just where it stood: to be paid or not to be paid out of the
Nabob's private treasures, according to his own discretion. The Company
had actually given it their sanction, though always relying for its
validity on the sole security of the faith of him[14] who without their
knowledge or consent entered into the original obligation. It had no
other sanction; it ought to have had no other. So far was Mr. Fox's bill
from providing _funds_ for it, as this ministry have wickedly done for
this, and for ten times worse transactions, out of the public estate,
that an express clause immediately preceded, positively forbidding any
British subject from receiving assignments upon any part of the
territorial revenue, on any pretence whatsoever.[15]

You recollect, Mr. Speaker, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
strongly professed to retain every part of Mr. Fox's bill which was
intended to prevent abuse; but in _his_ India bill, which (let me do
justice) is as able and skilful a performance, for its own purposes, as
ever issued from the wit of man, premeditating this iniquity,--

Hoc ipsum ut strueret, Trojamque aperiret Achivis,--

expunged this essential clause, broke down the fence which was raised to
cover the public property against the rapacity of his partisans, and
thus levelling every obstruction, he made a firm, broad highway for sin
and death, for usury and oppression, to renew their ravages throughout
the devoted revenues of the Carnatic.

The tenor, the policy, and the consequences of this debt of 1767 are in