1788.]

DEBATES ON THE REGENCY.

441

economy, selling all his horses, (his coach-horses included,) suspending his buildings, shutting up the most splendid apartments in Carlton-house, his residence, etc. When this had been supposed to have produced its effect on the public mind, his friends in the commons proposed (Apr. 20, 1787) an address to the king for his relief. Mr. Pitt earnestly required that the motion should be withdrawn, as it might lead to the disclosure of circumstances which he would wish to conceal. Mr. Rolle used still stronger language; while Fox, Sheridan and others of the prince's friends insisted that he feared no investigation of his conduct.

The matter alluded to was the secret marriage of the prince of Wales with a catholic lady of the name of Fitzherbert, a fact, of which we believe at present there can be no doubt. Mr. Fox, however, a few days after, by the authority of the prince, declared, that "the fact not only could never have happened legally, but never did happen in any way, and had from the beginning been a vile and malignant falsehood." The greater part of the house was, or affected to be, satisfied, and a meeting having taken place between the prince and Mr. Pitt, an addition of 10,000l. a year was made to his royal highness's income; 161,000l. was issued for the payment of his debts and 20,000l. for the works at Carlton-house. The prince then resumed his former mode of life, and soon got into debt as deeply as ever.

As there could be no doubt but that the prince, when regent, would select his ministers from the party with which he had long been connected, Mr. Pitt, we may be allowed to suppose, from private as well as public motives, was anxious to limit his powers. The regency was therefore offered to the prince, subject to the conditions of not being enabled to confer any peerage, or to grant any office, reversion or pension, except during the king's pleasure; while the care of the royal person, with the disposition of the household, and the consequent appointment to all

places in it (about four hundred in number) should be committed to the queen. The prince, though mortified, consented to accept this limited sovereignty. Had Mr. Fox and his friends been wise, (which they rarely showed themselves to be) they would have snatched the reins of power at once; but instead of doing so, they interposed such numerous needless delays, (though it was well-known that the king's health was improving every day,) that the bill did not reach its second reading in the house of lords till the 19th of February; the accounts of the royal health were by that time so favourable, that the house judged it decorous to adjourn to the 24th, on which day his majesty's intellect had recovered its usual state, and the cup of power was once more dashed from the lips of the whigs.

Very different had been the conduct of the Irish parliament. An address to the prince of Wales, " requesting him immediately to take on him the government of that kingdom as regent," was voted by both houses without a a division, and when the lord-lieutenant refused to transmit it, commissioners were appointed to present it to the prince. Here, then, was a striking proof of the evil of a divided legislature, and of the necessity of an incorporating union. Had the prince refused the limited regency of England, it would probably have been given to the queen, and thus England would have been ruled by one regent and Ireland by another, and with different powers. Fortunately the recovery of the king prevented the matter from acting otherwise than as a warning and an incentive to prudent statesmen, to guard against the recurrence of such another crisis.

CHAPTER IV.

GEORGE III. (CONTINUED).

1600-1789.

East India Company.-State of India.-First exploits of Clive.-Capture of Calcutta. Successes of Clive.-Battle of Plassey.-English in India.-Vigorous reforms of Clive ;-his death.-Warren Hastings.-The Rohillas.— Cheyte Sing.-The Begums.-Impeachment of Hastings.-East India bills of Fox and Pitt.-Marquess Cornwallis.

As India now formed an important portion of the British empire, we will sketch the origin and progress of the English dominion in that vast region*.

Toward the close of the reign of queen Elizabeth the English merchants began to aspire to a share in the lucrative commerce of the East, then engrossed by the Portuguese. The distance, danger, and expense of the voyage proving too great for individual enterprise, the queen in the year 1600 granted a charter to a company of merchants for the trade to India. The original capital of the company was 72,000l. divided into 50l. shares. In 1612 they established their first factory at Surat on the west coast of India. They formed settlements also in the Spice Islands; but from these they were driven by a series of aggressive acts on the part of the Dutch who had also settled there, ending in the massacre of Amboyna in 1623. Toward the middle of the 17th century they established factories at Madras and Fort St. David on the coast of Coromandel, and at Hooghly on the river of that name in Bengal, whence they afterwards removed to Calcutta, lower down on the same river. Charles II. gave to them the island of Bombay, which he had received in dower with his queen, and

* See Orme's History of Indostan, Mill's History of British India, Sir John Malcolm's Life of Clive, and his other works on India.

the isle of St. Helena in the Atlantic. James II., a great fosterer of trade, enlarged their charter very much, empowering them to build fortresses, raise troops, coin money, etc. By the extravagance, mismanagement, and corruption incidental to a company of the kind, they soon incurred a debt of two millions sterling; and in 1698 a rival company, by offering a large advance of money at eight per cent. to the government, obtained a charter. The old company also obtained a renewal of theirs, and after a trial of a few years, finding the competition ruinous, they united in 1702 under a new charter, and took the name of 'The United East India Company.' Their affairs were directed at home by a court of twenty-four directors chosen annually by the proprietors of the stock, and each of their settlements was governed by a president and a select committee.

At this time, the Portuguese, whose dominion had never been stable, were powerless in India; but the French had settlements at Pondicherry, on the coast of Coromandel, and at Chandernagore, on the Hooghly. The Dutch also had a factory at Chinsura on this river, and others on the Coromandel coast.

The political condition of India was of the following nature. In the close of the fifteenth century, Baber, a descendant of the celebrated Timoor, invaded and conquered a great part of India with an army of Mogul Turks. This empire was gradually extended by his successors, and under the vigorous rule of Aurungzebe it attained its utmost limits. But after the death of that monarch in 1707, the decline of the empire rapidly advanced, and the invasion of Nadir Shah, the Persian, in 1738, reduced it to the lowest ebb. Many of the subordinate chiefs became independent, yielding only a nominal obedience to the emperor of Delhi.

Permanent conquest in the East is little more than a change of rulers; the laws, the customs, the property of the people remain unaltered. So it was in India; a Hin

1746-49.]

ENGLISH AND FRENCH COMPANIES.

445

doo rajah was in many cases succeeded by a Mohammedan nabob, but the cultivator only paid his land-tax as before: the finances of the state were managed by Hindoos, and the native Soocars, or bankers, and opulent merchants retained the influence which wealth never fails to confer. Large portions of the empire were placed under the government of Soobahdars, or viceroys, under whom Mogul Nabobs or Hindoo Rajahs ruled over smaller districts.

The English long abstained from taking any concern in the affairs of the native princes, and they would probably have continued this prudent course had it not been for the ambition of their restless rivals the French. When the Silesian war broke out in Europe, France and England extended their hostilities to the East. A French fleet, under M. de Bourdonnais, reached India in 1746; the English fleet there retired before it, and Bourdonnais reduced Madras. He engaged that it should be restored on payment of a ransom; but when he was gone, Dupleix, the governor of Pondicherry, refused to perform the agreement. Dupleix attempted the following year to take Fort St. David, but he was obliged to retire, and was himself besieged in Pondicherry by admiral Boscawen (1749); owing however to the lateness of the season, want of skill in the engineer, and other causes, the siege proved a failure. By the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle Madras was restored; but as both the English and French companies had now good bodies of troops, they engaged them in the disputes of the native princes, till the breaking out of the Seven Years' War placed them again in hostilities with each other. These troops, we may observe, consisted of Europeans and of natives called Sepoys*.

Nizam-ul-Mulk, the soobahdar of the Deckan (South), or that part of India south of the river Nerbuddah, had of late years rendered himself nearly independent of the Great Mogul. Under him the nabob of Arcot ruled the Carnatic, a region extending for more than five hundred miles along

*The Persian Sipahi or Turkish Spahi, foot-soldier.