The Statesman. — London, England, 1809-07-15 00:00:00

I 'p brought more than 3001. New, this proved most clearly that It was well known by Mr. Thellus. son, if nut by thu wbole Court of Directors, that there Wa4 a certain market price for that which was obtained by their patronage. If the Directors themselves knew that their resolution of Me was not enforced, it was too much to call it great immorality and corruption in those pa rents who purchased the patruoage which they had not interest enough to procure in any other - way. Blackstone had laid it down, that co constitute that guilt which should draw down punishment, there must be s vicious will expressed. Now ho did not perceive any such vicious will in the parents of the young men whose fate was then under discussion. From one of them he had received a latter, of which the following is an extract :-- 46 Permit me, Sir, to declare ynu most soletnnly i that I never heard of the Resolution of the Court of Directors, in 1806, until it was stated, at the last meeting of the Court of Proprietors." A parent of ano. ther of the young Gentlemen appointed to a wri. tership ( Mr. Magniac), ho was himself acquainted with, and knew to bu a most respectable and ho nourable man, lie was acquainted with his son also, who was very amiable and pleasing in his manners, accomplished, and in every way a person that would appear eligible for such an appoint. meet. He afterwards understood, that he was a eimiplete master of the Persian language, and that he was employed in India in very important mat ters. The history of the purchase of this young I I van's appointment was this : His fatherAtad been romioed the appointment by a Director, who was s lee dead, aid in consequence of this promise, gave • •un the completed education to qualify him fur India. When his friend, however, died, he was not able to procure the necessary patronage from any other Director,aad therefore did purchase what be had no longer interest to get without purchase. Now be should ask any one, whether there was any vicious will or immorality in the father's per. chasing for a ion under these circumstances ? He would appeal to the common sense of the Proprie tors, whether the measure of punishment was not enormously too severe for the offence? Inds. pendent of the severity of the punishment, he would say, that it was absolutely unjust, that the young men should be punished fur the steps their fathers h id taken to procure their appointments. There was a bond between the East India Com pany and their servants, which the Company had no right to break when the servant had committed no offence. It was onoe said of the charter to the Company itself, " 6 that Charters were nothing but pieces of parchment with a great seal dangling to them." He hoped tbat the Company would not now say that their written contracts were merely pieces of paper, with their seal dangling to them. The sanctity of even verbal contracts, when well understood, was such, that he would never have any confidence in a Merchant, who would go back from his verbal agreement, if there were no witnesses to it. That part of justice which consisted in keeping contracts, was respected in all countries civilised and barbarous: and, as Locke had observed, was re. spected even in the robber's den. Ile thought, therefore, it would be sufficient to convince that Court, to shew them that the meal of these young men was contrary to the contract with them. This contract, he hoped, would be considered at least as binding u a common indenture of apprentice. ship. Having mentioned the situation of the pa. reab of the two young gentlemen who actually had gone to India as writers, and whom it was now proposed to recal, he mast also mention the circumstances of the parent of one of them who had been appointed, but had not gone out. Mrs. Gardner, his mother, was a widow, resident at Bath ; and in consenting to her son's departure to Inia, she had made a great sacrifice of her maternal feelings, in order to proctlie the ad vancement of her son. Could it be supposed she would also have upended such a large sum of money to procure the appointment, if her friends had not represented to her that it was a valid one ? Was it to be supposed, that a lady living in Bath, or any remote part of the king. durst, should be a constant reader of The Lon. don Gazelle, which ho himself, though a mer chant residing in London, but seldom saw ? Ho would appeal iu this case, not to the ladies who had votes in the Court of Proprietors, not even to those who were parents, but to those who were single men ; and he would ask them whether they conscienticenly believed that this Lady's conduct, in purchasing the appointment for her son, did arise from any vicious will, or itnatora. lily, that called fur severity of punishment, or whether they did not think that bar motives were highly praise.worthy. [applause:.) He there- fore was convinced, that not only the young men themselves were completely innocent, but that the etioduct of their parrots *rose from the tion of the Company oot having been sufficiently promulgated. He concluded by moving a long Resolution, expressive of disapprobation of the Resolution of the Court of Directors, and that the ages ought nut to be carried into effect. Mr. BARTIS could nut agree to the Resolution which was proposed. He thought the parents must have known that it was a wrong thing to purchase these appointments. He thought that the Court would give a handle to their many ene mies, if they protected persons who had obtained their appointments by corrupt means. Ile thought there had been too many appeals to humanity and private feeling on this occasion, and that the ho.' nour aid interests of the Company were more ins. portant considerations. A Gentleman, whose name we could not learn, spoke for a considerable length of time, and re. commended some conciliatory proposition between the Proprietors and Directors. Mr. MARRTATT conceived that this case had been put upon wrong grounds when it was argued as an entire case. It was only a branch of a ge neral system which the Legislature expected, and the honour of the Company required, to have cut up by the routs. The abuses which had taken place in the disposal of East India patro nage had been so very notorious, that when other Owes of a similar description were antler the coo - lideration of Parliament, their attention was unavoidably draws to those abases also; and two of the Directors thought the honour of their Hoard required that there should be an bivisetigts-, ties. The result of the Investigation was honour able to the characters of the Directors ; but at the same time the Committee of the House of Commons hinted very strongly that they expected that the Company would prevent the mammies of such abuses in retire. The general muse ♦f the Proprietors was thee for a reform of abuses ; and one of the Directors ( Mr. Thelloison) en punished severely fur an offence, not of intention, but of carelessness and remissness in the manner that he suffered his patronage to be sold. There appeared now a sort of revolution in their sentiments ; and although they had removed a Director, merely for not being watchful in preventing this corrupt traffic, it was now argued that those were not to be punished who did directly deal in it. Why should there be one role for the highest servants of the Company, and another for the inferior servants ? As to wounded feelings, it most be supposed that Mr.T. felt as acutely as any person the punishment of being removed from an honourable situation, for nut preventing corrupt practices, in which he was never charged with any direct or personal partici pation. If the measure of punishment was so dif. ferent, the world might well suppose, that it was because they felt no common interest with the Di. rectors ; but that many of them felt a personal lA terest about the Writers and Cadets. It appeared in evidence, before the Committee of the Noose of Commons, that many proprietors had been ac. tively employed in corrupt transactions. If there was to be any reform, some time must be chosen to commence it, and he thought no time was so fit as the present. It was the custom with many to put off the work of reform, like repentance, so lung, that they died in their sins. He really feared that such might be the fate of the Company, if they did not seriously oppose themselves to cop. rupt practices. He could not agree in the resole. dun which was proposed, and concluded by mov ing the previous question. Mr. S►sssow seconded the last motion. He said that he felt as much as any body else for the suf ferings of the young men, and would cheerfully put his name down to any subscription that might be put forward in their favour, although he conceived the purity of the Conspatty required that they should be recalled. Mr. STEPHIEV began by complimenting highly the Court of Directors, who were as attentive to the interests of their constituents as any other body of men in the world. He, however, con. tended, that in the present instance their Resolu tion was contrary to all justice, and to every law both human and divine. He said, that as "to visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children," that was the Jewish dispensation ; but that the Christian law was, " the soul that sinneth shall be cut of." Now in this instance, the young men could not be said to have committed any of. fence; the crime,if any, being that of their father,. He then cut, e"cled with considerable ingenuity, that the, words of tn,. Resolution, " obtaining or. pro. • curing, through themselves, their agents, or any r other persons, directly," did not, according to legal construction, import such an obtaining as that by which those young men obtained their ap. pointments, as their fathers could not be called their agents, and it was they who obtained the appointments for their sons, and not the sons who obtained them by corrupt means. He therefore contended, that punishment would be unjust, as there was no guilt. lie then expatiated with great warmth upon the agonized feelings of the parents, which would be torn up and harrowed by this cruel punishment of their children. He said this would be inflicting severer punishment than the studied torments which savages invent for those they mean to torture, and called upon the Court not to lay sacrilegious hands upon the hearts of fathers. He trusted the .;citirt would excuse his stating strongly, what he felt strongly. If he, and those who thought with hint on this 1 1 question, were to be actuated by a desire to screen the guilty, they could not more effectnally accomplish that object, than by supporting the Resolution of the Court of Directors, which would draw down punishment upon the innocent. He should appeal to the Members of that Court, as fathers, whether they could say, that it was nothing that the young ambition of these innocent persons should be nipped in the bud. As well might they expect that the blossoms blighted in April should produce new fruit in May, as that the prospects and ambition of these innocent young men should be re.prch . iced, if once blasted by the baneful influence of a fecal, under such cir carostances. Mr. BARTIS explained. Mr. JACKSON said, he had known but few questions which had been so changed In form and meaning—which had been so transmuted and transmogrified, as that then udder' de consider.' ation of the Court. When the Members of that Court had at first given way to their feelings of humanity, they went no further than to recommend to the Court of Directors to re. consider their Resolution ; and undoubtedly he was prepared to admit, that in legislative lan. guage, and in course of public business, a recom mendation from the constituents to the constituted amounted by implication to a command. When asked, however, whether the recommendation was to be considered as mandatory, the Gentle. men with whom it originated answered iu the nee dye. The Court of Directors, therefore, had re considered their Resolution ; and after all the pa negyrics that had been passed upon their conduct, it would not be said that they had done so care. lessly or negligently. Upon that reconsideration, they bad respectfully come back to that Court and told them, that they saw no reason for alter. log their former Resolution : and iu this decisioss the Court of Directors had not been actuated by a wish to gratify the multitude, but to preserve the power of the Company in the Peninsula of India; not by any regard for their own character, so much as a solicitude for the interests of the East India Company. So stood the question, before the present discussion. The case was now however altered, and the issue was so longer a question between the General Court of Proprietors and the Court of Diegtom, but between the poems wh i o= foftirard the present motion and their oetioactions, and the interests of the whole SOW India Company. The mask was now thrown eif, ad these Gentlemen proposed a Res* that the decision of the Court of Directors sot brearried into execution, bat that their and sober determination should be rescin,ded by a precipitate vote of that Court. He could have wished that before this Resolution bad been brought forward, the Gentlemen had looked into the law of the Company, to see how it would boar them out in such a proposition ; because, if the law were, against them, all the eloquence of the Honour. able Mover, and of his Learned Friend, would fall to the ground. If the Resolution then under consideration should meet with success, all the servants of the Company in India would hereafter have to do would be to treat the orders of the Court of Directors with neglect and contumely, and then to come before that Court, aided by such eloquence as they had beard that day, to procure indemnity for their misconduct. If that Court, by any tumultuary proceedings, should rescind the de. liberate Resolutioo of the Court of Directors, it would afford a ground for the abridgment of privi. !cps so abused. Until lately the Court of Proprie tors had possessed an uncontrouled power, with re spect to the affairs of the Company, and he was ready to admit that the same power still existed, except where it was taken away by the statute. As to what had been said by to Hon. Mover, respect ing the promulgation of the Resolution of the Di rectors, by posting it up in the India House, that was required by Lord North's Regulating Bill, and applied only to such regulations as may have been adopted respecting the Supreme Court in India, first established by that Bill. The Act of 1793 provided that no resolutions of the Court of Directors could be rescinded by the Court of Pro. prietors. The same clause, however, went on to state, provided such resolution met with the ap probation of the Board of Conttoul. If the Gentlemen meant to pitch upon this proviso, he bad only to say, that the same reasoning would apply to the recal of the Governor-General, or to any other resolution respecting the reform of abuses or the improvement of the administration of affairs in India. The exercise of .such an in. terference in the case of Warren Hastings, led to the abridgement of the privileges of the Company; and if the same power were now to be acted upon It would lead to the same result. His Learned Friend had asked, whether they would wish to punish the innocent youths ? but that bad never been the question. Their object was to punish the guilty parents • and the expose e of bring. ing home their Children would operate as a punishment neon such persons, who by coming before the Court of Directors with a lie in their mouths, had been guilty of such impropriety, as, it pursued with rigour, would disqualify them for sitting with gentlemen. Notwithstanding the statement of his Learned Friend, that the Resolu. tion of the Court of Directors was contrary to justice, and to the practice of all but barbarous nations, the forfeitures for felonies, tremens, and other crimes, by the law of his own nation, were governed by the same principle. When the Ho. nourable Mover quoted the authority of Marquis Beccaria, as to the scale of crimes and punish. manta, he forgot the assertion of the same learned writer, that the certainty of punishment was the most obligatory duty upon States. Cadets came before the Court of Directors with a paper in their hands, which shewed that they could not be ignorant of the terms on which they entered into the service. Whether Writers came equally ad monished, he had his doubts; but he would ask their fathers, guardians, or relations, whether, when conducting the negociatious fur the pur. chase of their appointments, they were not sensible they were doing wrong ? If nut, what was the use of X. Y. and Y. Z. of Mr. Shee and Lady Lum, and the whole pack of those who were the agents in this corrupt traffic ? When his Learned Friend so boldly challenged them to produce any maxims of law to support the Reso. lotion of the Court of Directors, he forgot that maxim so interwoven with the statute and coo nion law of this country, that no man shall take advantage of his own wrong. With respect to the Resolution then under consideration, it would involve them in this logical dilemma " either it was supported by law, and then it would subvert the authority of the Court of Directors • or it was not founded is law, and then it would be a disgrace to that Court to have entertained it." The previous question was the only means of saving them from that dilemma. Mr. Lowevas contended, that as the sword of justice had been resorted to, the balance ought also to have been introduced. He could not see where the distinction had arisen between those who had ;one out between 1799 and 1806, and those who bidlobe got ender - MUM circumstances since 1806. Mr. P. Mooas rose, only to justify the motives by which he was actuated. He denied that the Resolution was an imperative dictum to the Di. rectors. it proceeded only em the principle, that the parties should not be recalled till further in. quiry was made ; and the question then was, whe. ther this Inquiry should be made hero or in India. In this view, he contended that the Resolution moved was not mandatory. [The Resolution was hens read again at the desire of Mr. Jackson.] Mr. Moore still adhered to his original impression, that the Resolution was not mandatory, and only required time to wait for further inquiry, before the Resolution of the Court of Directors should be carried into execution. The reason why Sir Thomas Turton's motion had not been carried in the House of Commons was, that this was a ques. tion considered as exclusively belonging to the jurisdiction of the Company. If the motion had been, that the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons was net imperative upon the Court of Directors, he was convinced it would have been agreed to unanimously. Mr. GRANT (the Chairman), conceiving that the question had received an ample discussion, should not detain the Court long at that late hour, but wished to submit one or two consideration• t o I their attention before they came to the question That the Bodeen before the Court was stands. log epee 'the Cm* et Directors is the highest awes, sheet of a y command, oo Gen tleman would, he , venture to deny. If such a Resolution ellield hopened, what would be the situation of rte Court of Directors ? Would it not lead to a coollict of the most un. happy kind between the Executive and the great body of the Compaby ? Re had foreseen from the first, that the qoatien had a tendency to lead to ibis result. But when private interests were suf. fend to interfere, as it was shunt impossible they should mot, with public duty, in such a case the coesequeoce must be to embroil the Directors and the Proprietors in a dispute to be deprecated. If the Directors saw that soy ltaseletioa prepoard would operate against the interests of the Com pany, it was their duty to persevere in resisting it. When the recommendation bad been made in the first reference to them, they considered that it left them the power of free deliberation. They had deliberated freely upon the refereuce, and report, d the result to the Court. The question was now brought forward in a mandatory form, and they had only to add, that, whilst suffered to act s they had but one alternative, and that was to act like: honest men—[applattres] They had never wish ed the question u to the point of law to be moved ; but foreseeing that the case would at length corn:- to this, they bad resorted to the highest law au thorities, in order to be able to meet it. The opinion he was then about to read had been kept in the possession of the Secretary, and not been communicated to any person out of She Court of Directors. Indeed he bad refused to communi. cate it to some particular friends who bad desired to see it. lie should only read the end of the opinion which was signed by the Attorney and So licitor General, and by Mr. Adam, Counsel to the East India Company. They bad been consulted as to the two points in a very full and clear state. ment of the case; first, as to the legality of the ap. pointinents; and, secondly, as to the authority and power of the Court of Proprietors. Upon lithe latter question, it was their opinion, that the Omni of Proprietors had not purer to rescind the Resolution of the Court of Directors, or to re. store the parties recalled. Ile wished again to state, that it had octet been the wish of the Dim. tors to govern their conduct according to the dry point of law, but from a regard to the true into. rests of all parties both at home and abroad. If ever a question ought to have been left to the Court of Directors, it was that to which thi ,- Re. solution referred, and which, he should add, ought not to have been handled as it had. A Learned Gent. (Mr. Stephen) had to his surprise con. tended, that the Resolution of the Court of Di. rectors was oppressive and unjust. Whatever induciee that Geotleman's eloquence might hare, it cool I not take from him the opinion he enter. tained in his conscience. The Company, he should always contend, had • right to prescribe the terms upon which persons were to enter its ler. vice ; and unless they should conform to such terms, the Company had a right to dismiss them. If this Resolution should be carried, then parents 1 1 would have only to say, " Let us never trust the transaction to our chihiree," to secure inditine nity. But if parents would do these things with their eves open, and procure the appointment of their children by surreptitious means, the Com. pany bad a right to remove them. If the Resolu tion of the Court of Directors should be reerio. ml, all their other Resolutions, and the Act of tlii: Legislature which had reference to this Resolution as their foundation, would be ineffectual. Be. sides it would be attended with bad consequences in India, if it should be known that persous who had thus procured their appointments were conti. nued in them. Oa the whole, therefore, he thought that the best mode of disposing of a Resolution, which would be attended with such bad conse. quences both at home nod abroad, was by the pr.. 'ions question. Mr. SANSON disclaimed baring come forward as the vindicator of any parent, guardian, or friend of the youths in question, who bad violated the laws of the Company. Re bad merely stood fur. ward as the humble advocate of the youths them. selves, whose case, notwithstauding all he bad heard, he thought extremely bard; and that the measure of their real was one that extended to the innocent the punishment due only to the guilty. The'Conrt was then cleared of strangers, and the previous question being put from the Chair, it was carried by a chew of hands its the affirmative, after which the Court adjourned. I FROM THE DUTCH PAPERS. PARIS, JULT 2.... An extraordinary Courier has announced to the King of Bavaria, that im mediately after the capture of Raab, the fortress of Camara vas initsted, and it was &haat to be bombarded. SAINT ANDER, JUNE 14....0n the 10th inst. Geovral Noviut, Governor of this place, heard that the insurgents had taken possession of all the posts in the neighbourhood of this town, being under the command of General Ballasterus, the Duke of Villanova and Marquetito, and their force consisting of from 10 to 12,000 men. The General, on this, did not betitate to advance against the enemy ; though he had not above 1200 melt at his command. The castle nod town were, by his care, soon placed in a formidable state of defence. At two o'clock of the after. noon, the French advanced guard attacked that of the enemy, and a sharp engagement took place. The enemy availed himself of his advantageous position, defending himself vigorously ; but the French General striking up the stornumarch, the insurgents were overthrown on all sides, took flight, leaving behind them their arms, ammuni. lion, one piece of cannon, and a number of dead. They collected again on the bridge of Arcr, whence they wcre again driven by the bay onet. General Noviot arrived at length at Cartes, a little town four leagues from St. Ander, and pre 'wed to pupae his incredible advantage., though he had not a twelfth of the numbers of the ene my, when an Aitle.de-camp arrived from Gcn J' L