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238] ANNUAL REGISTER
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their reformation will become more difficult: nor can we allow that the speculation of more ample powers to be hereafter given by parliament (but which are not as yet so much as proposed)can furnish an adequate reason for preventing the operation of such powers as legally exist at present. Besides, without suspending the commission, any degree of authority thought expedient might have been superadded to the present powers given by the company: we do therefore in this solemn manner exculpate ourselves to the present time, and to posterity, from having any share in the oppressions which may arise, or be continued on the native inhabitant in the company's possessions in India; and from any part in the danger which may happen to their valuable possessions from the waste or decay of their revenues, or in the loss or diminution of trade, which may so very probably arise from this arbitrary delay of a timely remedy. It must be a matter of astonishment to the public, who have for a long time earnestly and anxiously looked to the company, or to parliament, for redress of the grievances in India, to find at length, that the latter is only employed in preventing the from doing its duty; that instead of correcting the abuse, we oppose ourselves to the reformation; that when it was expected, that those who have wronged the company should be brought to exemplary punishment, the suffering company itself is deprived of its rights; and instead of calling delinquents to account, the person legally empowered to correct tor restrain them, are by parliament suspended from their office. It was the more necessary for the company
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to give the strictest attention to their affairs, to enable them to answer the exorbitant demands of government, as it appeared from the witnesses at the bar, that the exaction of parliament have amounted to more than the whole of the profits from the late acquisitions and the trade in consequence of them, while the proprietors who have spent so much, and so often risqued their all for obtaining these acquisitions, have not been permitted to divide even so much as the profits of their former trade would have afforded.
VI. Because the bill was brought in at a season when this house is always ill-attended, and carried through with a violent and indecent precipitation. The reason assigned for this precipitation is as unsatisfactory as the act is violin; "that unless the bill was passed, "the commissioners might fail during " the recess at Christmas;" this, considering the circumstances, is almost physically impossible: nor is it were otherwise, can we think the mere possibility of the abuse of a legal right in the subject, any sort of reason, for our being precipitate in taking it away.
VII. Because a reason of fact is alleged in the preamble of the bill, slating the expence of the commission to be very considerable; and this house has not before it any account or estimate of the expences actual or probable, nor are we supplied with any accounts shewing or tending to shew the present ability or inability of the company to bear it; so that lords are made to assert facts, and on these facts to ground a law, altering the condition and suspending the charter rights of the company,

For the YEAR 1772.    [239

company, without a possibility f knowing whether the said facts are true or false. Lords, in whom the law place such an high confidence, that it excepts in all cases, of property, their honour in the place of the sworn testimony of other men, ought in their public character to be remarkably punctilious in affirming any matter which can affect such property, without a thorough knowledge of its truth. 

VIII. Because this house, not content with assessing the said facts without an knowledge of their foundation, did absolutely resolve to continue uniformed, refusing to call for the evidence of the directors concerning the expense; or in a matter of such importance, both in itself and it its example, to follow the antient settled parliamentary course of desiring a conference with the commons, in order to be acquainted with the evidence which they received as the grounds of their proceeding; by which means this house submits to be the register of their acts, and to lower in the estimation of the world, the natural honour and dignity of the peers. 

IX. Because this bill for suspending the legal powers of the company, in the appointment to its own officers, appears to us to the part of a design, long since formed, and never abandoned, for enlarging the influence of the crown (already far too prevalent and extensive) by the introduction of ministerial authority in the nomination to the numbers lucrative employments, now in the gift of the company; a design which, adhering to the principles of the protest of the 9th of February, 1768, we think ourselves obliged to oppose. We therefore do protest against this bill, as evidently a leading part in that design, as inexpedient, unconstitutional, supported neither by any fact that we know, or any reason that we have heard, as contrary to natural faith, injurious to public credit and to the legal rights of the subject, and hurried through this house in a manner neither decent, nor parliamentary, nor suitable to the independence and dignity of the lords. 

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The King of Sweden's Speech, at the opening of the Diet, on the 25th of June, 1771. 

MOST noble, most revered, trusty and well beloved, the men who compose the four orders of the Swedish people; 

Everything as this present moment, even the very place I occupy calls to my mind, as it does to yours, our great and common loss. When the states of  the kingdom terminated their last assembly, they beheld in this place a king, respected and beloved, surrounded by affectionate subjects, and three sons, who disputed with them the advantage of giving him the strongest proofs of their veneration, and their love. In the stead of a sight so affecting, you now behold only three orphans, overwhelmed with grief, who mingle their tears with yours, and whose wounds bleed afresh to rend your hearts. 

The tears of subjects are the most glorious monuments that can be raised to the memory of a good king. Those which you shed this day, are a spur to me that animates 

me

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