undertaking, _to consider the causes which, in their opinion_, have
produced the failure of the first,--that the defects of the original
plan may be supplied, its errors corrected, and such useful regulations
as were then adopted may be further explained, enlarged, and enforced.

[Sidenote: Proceedings of session 1773.]

The first design of this kind was formed in the session of the year
1773. In that year, Parliament, taking up the consideration of the
affairs of India, through two of its committees collected a very great
body of details concerning the interior economy of the Company's
possessions, and concerning many particulars of abuse which prevailed at
the time when those committees made their ample and instructive reports.
But it does not appear that the body of regulations enacted in that
year, that is, in the East India Act of the thirteenth of his Majesty's
reign, were altogether grounded on that information, but were adopted
rather on probable speculations and general ideas of good policy and
good government. New establishments, civil and judicial, were therefore
formed at a very great expense, and with much complexity of
constitution. Checks and counter-checks of all kinds were contrived in
the execution, as well as in the formation of this system, in which all
the existing authorities of this kingdom had a share: for Parliament
appointed the members of the presiding part of the new establishment,
the Crown appointed the judicial, and the Company preserved the
nomination of the other officers. So that, if the act has not fully
answered its purposes, the failure cannot be attributed to any want of
officers of every description, or to the deficiency of any mode of
patronage in their appointment. The cause must be sought elsewhere.

[Sidenote: Powers and objects of act of 1773, and the effects thereof.]