emolument of persons entrusted with any civil or military power of the State is illegal.
3. That very great sums of money, and other valuable property have been acquired in Bengal from Princes and others of that country, by persons entrusted with the military and civil powers of the State by means of such powers; which sums of money and valuable property have been appropriated to the private use of such persons.
Such were the main features of the new scheme for the government of India. To many parts of it Shelburne gravely objected.[1] In the first place, the resolutions of General Burgoyne not having been followed up with any action against the offenders in India, it was, to say the least, problematical if they would have any effect. The increase of the qualification for a vote at the India House was intended to check the confusion which prevailed at the elections, but it was not clear to him that the increased value given to a vote by the scheme would not introduce the worse evil of cabal and corruption. The new judges were to be appointed during pleasure. Shelburne wished their tenure to be the same as that of the judges in England. The inland trade in his opinion ought also to have been thrown open, and the commercial monopoly of the Company abolished. There was also much to be said on the subject of the control—qualified as it was—which the Bill gave to the Government over the patronage of the Company.[2] He felt, as strongly as Burke, that it had an undeniable tendency to increase the chief political danger of the time, the influence of the Crown over the House of Commons. On the other hand the Bill, by placing the nomination of the Governor-General and Council under the control of Parliament, violated the principle which places the appointment of public officers in the Crown, while committing a check upon improper nomination to Parliament. Shelburne, accordingly, would himself have preferred to leave the Company as receivers, liable to account for the territorial revenue to the State, and having first set
