Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/472

446 The two Committees successively appointed to examine the question did not report till the spring of 1773. It then appeared that the whole available property of the Company was reduced to £2,930,568, so that of their capital stock of £4,200,000, £1,269,431 was expended and gone. Nor was this all.

"The crimes and frauds of the servants in India," wrote Shelburne to Chatham, "enormous as they appear in the Reports sent your Lordship, are not I believe yet fully stated. The Directors, occupied in domestic pursuits equally fraudulent, have produced the effect of accomplices throughout; while the proprietors, who, as the last resort, ought to be the purest to the objects of their charter, appear the most servile instruments of both, and to have their spirit directed by their several leaders, to answer nothing else than the different purposes of a ministerial market. Nor has there been found as yet, to speak impartially, anywhere in the House of Commons that firm, even, judicial spirit, capable of administering, much less of originating that justice which the case requires; and your Lordship will easily imagine the effect of scenes which daily arise there, from the activity and double dealing of the Court operating upon the situation and circumstances of individuals, in an interval when no avowed leader appears on either side, nor no one common object. In the meantime, the public judgment, as is often the case, goes to the right object, though on wrong reasoning. It is generally felt that the affairs of India are mismanaged; but the reasons given why they are so, are that charter rights should be inviolable, and that it is the last degree of hardship not to leave men the disposal of their own money and of the offices and emoluments arising from the distribution of it. While no one proprietor stands out to demand general justice, and the aid of Parliament at large for the safety or recovery of his property, but all act within the narrowest party limits, it is not surprising that the public should overlook the effect which any new system