Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/87

Rh limited to Company's servants of a certain standing (at least twelve years), which would in the mind of every candid person leave very little room in respect to them for ministerial patronage, and it should be left to the Court of Directors to frame such general Regulations for the appointment to offices in India as should be consistent with the selection of capable men, and to establish the strictest system that they can devise of check and control upon every article of expenditure at the different Presidencies.

'I would likewise recommend that it should be clearly understood and declared that the Court of Directors should have a right to expect that His Majesty's Ministers should pay the greatest attention to all their representations respecting the conduct of the Governors, Commander-in-Chief, and Councillors; and that in case satisfactory redress should not be given to any of their complaints of that nature, that they should have a right to insist upon the recall of any Governor, Commander-in-Chief, or Councillors, whom they should name, and that the utmost facility should be given to them to institute prosecutions against such Governors, &c., whose conduct may appear to them to have been culpable, before the Court of Judicature which has been established by Act of Parliament for the trial of Indian delinquents.

'In regard to the military arrangements, I am clearly of opinion that the European troops should all belong to the King, for experience has shown that