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236] ANNUAL REGISTER

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of these realms may come to depend on the force or invalidity of the power given by this bill, an appeal made against it would probably bring upon the royal family and the nation all the miseries and horrors of civil war.
 Because, though the placing such a power in the king, with the interposition of both houses of parliament, is a better security against the abuse of it, than if it had been entrusted to the king alone, yet it may be so used, in corrupt or violent times, as to be made, in some cases, a perpetual negative on the freedom of marriage.
 Because, if the power be grievous, and contrary to the inherent rights of mankind, the grievance is increased by the infinite number of persons over whom, in the course of time, it is likely to extend.
 Because we are convinced, that all the good purposes and objects of the bill, which we have greatly at heart, might have been answered without giving that perpetuity of restraint over the freedom of marriage, which we think ourselves bound in conscience to oppose.
 Temple      Lyttelton
 Radnor      Abingdon
 Clifton     Craven
 And, because the bill is essentially wanting to its avowed purpose, in having provided no guard against the greater evil, the improper marriages of the princes on the throne.
R A D N O R.

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The Lords Protest, against the Bill, for restraining the East-India Company from sending Supervisors to India.

Jorvis, 24 Die Decembris, 1772:

  Dissentient,
I. BECAUSE the bill takes away from a great body corporate, and from several free subjects of this realm, the exercise of a legal franchise, without any legal cause of forfeiture assigned. The persons appointing the commissioners had by law a right to elect; and the persons chosen had by law a capacity of being elected. The choice was regularly made according to the constitution of the company. It was confirmed on ballot. The supervisors had a full right vested in them agreeable to the powers and conditions of their appointment. No abuse has been suggested, no delinquency has been charged. These legal rights and capacities are therefore taken away by a mere act of arbitrary power; the precedent of which leaves no sort of security to the subject for his liberties; since his exercising them, in the strictest conformity to all the rules of law, as well as to those of general equity and moral conduct, is not sufficient to prevent parliament from interesting its sovereign powers to divest him of those rights, by means of which insecurity the honourable distinction between the British and other forms of government is in a great measure lost; a misfortune which we are sorry to find greatly growing upon us by those temporary occasional and partial acts of parliament, which, without consideration of their conformity to the general principles of our law and constitution, are adopted rashly and hastily on every petty occasion.
 II. Because this bill appears to us

For the YEAR 1772. [237

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us a manifest violation of the public faith. The charter of the East-India company has been granted by the crown, authorised by act of parliament, and purchased for valuable consideration of money lent, and paid. The charter empowers the company to manage its own affairs, according to its own discretion, by persons of its own appointment. This bill suspends for a time the exercise of this privilege, and by grounding the supervision upon the actual interference of parliament on the affairs of the company, establishes a principle which may be used for perpetrating indefinitely the restraint, because parliament may keep their affairs by frequent revisions almost perpetually under consideration. the same principle is also applicable to the suspension or deprivation of any other privilege which they hold under their charter. We admit that it is difficult to fix any legal limit to the extent of legislative power; but we apprehend that parliament is as much bound as any individual to the observance of its own compacts; else it is impossible to understand what public faith means, or how public credit can subsist.
 III. Because it appears by evidence at the bar of this house upon oath, that the company had received assurances from their chairman and deputy chairman, that the appointment of a commission for superintending and regulating their affairs would be approved by administration. This is the only channel of communication with ministers that the company can have, and it is peculiarly hard that, driven from all confidence in public faith, and the laws of their country, they should find no security for their charter privileges against the attempts made by those very ministers, under whose sanction they had all possible reason to believe they had been acting.
 IV. Because it appears to us that the company was not only authorised by law, but bound in duty, to appoint a commission for regulating their affairs and correcting abuses; and it would in our opinion furnish a more plausible ground for attacking the lawful powers of the company, if it were charged, that they had not exercised them for redress of the said abuses, than that they had appointed a commission for such a necessary purpose: it might have been alledged by the adversaries of the company, that non-user and neglect of applying legal powers for the ends for which such powers were given, were matters of delinquency in that corporation, and might have subjected them to process in the courts below, or to an adverse proceeding in parliament. It is a government as we conceive full of deceit as well as violence, where men are to be punished if they decline, or to be restrained if they endeavour, to exercise their lawful powers.
 V. Because we have reason to believe from public opinion and report that great abuses still prevail and increase in the company's settlements abroad, which makes it highly expedient that the commission restrained by this bill for six months should have as little delay as possible. Six months delay in the commission will, by the nature of the reason, certainly protract its operations for a year, and probably for much longer. By this means all abuses will gain ground, and their