[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.