On the 8th of July, lord Pigot refused, as president, to put a question to the board (upon the regular motion of a member), for rescinding a resolution before entered into. This" refusal left the majority no choice between an absolute surrender of their trusts, and an exercise of them without his ministerial assistance; there was no other alternative in the absence of a superior coercive authority, to compel him to a specific performance of his duty; but they proceeded no farther than the necessity justified; they did not extend the irregularity (if any there was) beyond the political urgency of the occasion.-Although their constitutional rights were infringed by the president's claim, they formed no plan for their general vindication; but contented themselves with declaring, on that particular occasion, that, as the government resided in them, the president ought not to refuse putting the question, and that the resolution ought to be rescinded.

When the president again refused to put the question in the month following, for taking into consideration the draughts of instructions to colonel Stuart (which was the immediate cause of all the disturbances that followed), they again preserved the same mo

taining that the majority constituted the efficient board of president and council. In this case, we could devise no measure to be pursued consistent with the rules of the service; but lord Pigot said there was no fear of this, as he insisted the secretary would not dare to issue any order in his name when he forbade it. It was impossible to know, whether sir Robert Fletcher would attend, or not; it was necessary to have every thing prepared, that nothing might be to be done in council; the Company's orders required the charge to be in writing; THE GOVERNOR, THEREFORE, HAD IN HIS POCKET CHARGES PRE

PARED FOR EVERY PROBABLE CONTINGENCY, whether they began at the eldest or the youngest, and whether the form was an order from themselves, or an order to the secretary; and whether sir Robert Fletcher was present, or not. It was agreed, that the first of us to whom the paper was presented for signing, should immediately hand it to the president, who was then to produce the charge; the standing orders directing that members, against whom a charge is made, should have no seat; the members charged were, of course, deprived of their votes. As our ideas went no farther than relieving the governor from the compulsion the majority wanted to lay him under, it was determined to suspend no more than the necessity of the circumstance required." With this snare laid for them during the interval of that adjournment, which their moderation had led them to, the council met on the 22d of August, and, after having recorded their dissent from the president's illegal claim, to a negative on their proceedings, by refusing to perform his part in the prosecution of them (though strictly enjoined thereto by the standing orders of the Company), and in which refusal he still obstinately persisted, they entered a minute, declaring it as their opinion, that the resolution of the council should be carried into execution without farther delay, and that the instructions to colonel Stuart, and the letter to colonel Harper, should be signed by the secretary by order of council.

votes, which, according to Mr. Dalrymple's economical scheme of illegality, exactly got rid of the majority, by his own (the accuser's) casting vote.

The weakness and absurdity of the principle (if it deserves the name) on which this sus pension was founded, creates a difficulty in seriously exposing it by argument; yet, as it produced all the consequences that followed, I cannot dismiss it without the following remarks:

First, It was a gross violation of the constitu tion of the government, even admitting lord Pigot to have been that integral part of it, which he assumed to be, as the establishment of that claim could only have given him a negative on the proceedings of a majority, but never could have enabled him to fabricate one so as to do positive acts without one; the sudden charge and suspension of Messrs. Stratton and Brooke, and breaking the majority by putting the question on both at once, would, therefore, have been irregular, even supposing the concurrence of the majority to the act which constituted the charge against them, to have been unknown to lord Pigot, and the minority who voted with him: but when their concurrence was perfectly known; when the majority of the board had just before publicly delivered in a minute, expressive of their right to authorize the secretary to sign the order, if the president refused to do it; when the order was avowedly drawn out in pursu ance of that minute, which made the whole one act, and was in the regular course of signing by the majority, who had just before declared their authority to sign it; the snatching the paper under such circumstances, while unfinished, and arraigning those who had already signed it under the auspices of the majority, as being guilty of an act subversive of the government, lodged in that majority, and turning it into a minority by excluding the votes of the parties charged, was a trick upon the governing powers which they could neither have submitted to with honour to themselves, or duty to their em

This minute was regularly signed by a majority, and the president having again positively refused his concurrence, they pre-ployers. pared a letter to Mr. Secretary Sullivan, approving of the instructions to colonel Stuart, and the letter to lieutenant-colonel Harper.

The letter thus written, in the name of the majority, and under their most public and avowed auspices, it was the immediate purpose of all of them to have signed in pursuance of the minute they had just before delivered in, expressive of their authority to that purpose; but the president, according to the ingenious plan preconcerted during the adjournment, snatched the paper from Mr. Brooke after he and Mr. Stratton had signed it, before the rest of the majority could put their names to it, and pulling a written accusation out of his pocket, charged them as being guilty of an act subversive of the government; put the question of suspension on both at once, and ordered the secretary to take neither of their

Such a power, however, lord Pigot assumed over the government of Fort St. George, by converting an act of the majority, rendered necessary by his refusal to do his duty, into a criminal charge against two members acting under their authority, and by a device too shallow to impose on the meanest understanding, cut them off from acting as part of that majority, by which the powers of the government were subverted, and passed away from them while they were in the very act of saving them from subversion.

It is unnecessary to say, that they were neither called upon in duty, nor even authorized, had they been willing, to attend the summons of a board so constituted by the foulest usurpation; a board at which they must either have sacrificed their consciences and judgments, or become the vain opposers

with regularity and fidelity, nor was it till after a total subversion of it, by the arbitrary suspension of the governing powers (and in the absence of all superior visitation), that they asserted their own rights, and restored the government by reassuming them. The powers so assumed, appear to have been exercised with dignity and moderation; the necessary restraint of lord Pigot's person was not tainted with any unnecessary rigour, but alleviated (notwithstanding the dangerous folly of his friends) with every enlargement of intercourse, and every token of respect; the most jealous disinterestedness was observed by Mr. Stratton in not receiving even the lawful profits of magistracy; and the temporary authority, thus exerted for the benefit of their employ ers, was resigned back into their hands with cheerfulness and submission; resigned, not like rapacious usurpers with exhausted revenues, disordered dependencies, and distracted councils, but with such large investments, and such harmonious dispositions, as have been hitherto unknown in the Company's affairs in any settlement in the East.

of measures destructive to the interests of their employers; they therefore assembled, and answered the illegal summons, by a public protest against the usurped authority by which it issued. To this council, assembled for the single purpose of sending such protest, they did not, indeed, summon the subverters of the government against whom it was levelled; affairs were arrived at too dangerous a crisis to sacrifice substance to forms, which it was impossible should have been regarded. Lord Pigot and his associates, on receiving the protest against the proceedings of the 22d of August, completed the subversion of the constitution, by the suspension of the rest of the majority of the council, and ordered sir Robert Fletcher, the commander-in-chief, to be put under arrest, to be tried by a court-martial, for asserting the rights of the civil government as a member of the council. This is positively sworn to have been done by lord Pigot before their assumption of the government. Here then was a crisis in which it was necessary to act with decision, and, in asserting their rights by civil authority, to save the impending consequences of tumult and blood.-The period of temporizing was past, and there was no doubt of what it was their duty to do. Charged with the powers of the government, they could not surrender them with honour, and it was impossible to maintain them with safety or effect, while their legal authority was treated as usurpation and rebellion. They, therefore, held a council, and agreed that the fortress and garrison should be in their hands, and under their command, as the legal representatives of the Company, and, as there was every thing to dread from the intemperance of lord Pigot's disposition, they, at the same time, authorized colonel Stuart to arrest his person if he thought it necessary to preserve the peace of the settlement; colonel Stuart did think it necessary, and his person was accordingly arrested; but, during his necessary confinement, he was treated with every mark of tenderness and respect.

Your lordships are, therefore, to decide this day on a question never before decided, or even agitated in any English court of justice; you are to decide upon the merits of A REVO LUTION which, as all revolutions must be, was contrary to established law, and not legally to be justified. The only revolutions which have happened in this land, have been, when Heaven was the only court of appeal, because their authors had no human supe riors; and so rapidly has this little island branched itself out into a great empire, that I believe it has never occurred that any disorder in any of its foreign civil dependencies, has been the subject of judicial inquiry; but, I apprehend that, since the empire has thus expanded itself, and established governments at distances inaccessible to its own ordinary visitation and superintendance, all such subordinate governments, all political emanations from them, must be regulated by Such, my lord, is the case-and it is much the same spirit and principles which animate to the honour of the defendants, that not a and direct the parent state. Human laws single fact appeared, or was attempted to be neither do nor can make provision for cases made appear, at the trial, that did not stand which suppose the governments they establish avowed upon the face of their public proceed- to fall off from the ends of their institutions; ings; I say, literally none; for I will not and, therefore, on such extraordinary emerwheel into court that miserable post-chaise, gencies, when forms can no longer operate, nor its flogged postillion, the only living birth from the absence of a superior power to comof this mountain which has been two years in pel their operation, it strikes me to be the its labour; every thing, and the reason and duty of the component parts of such governmotive of every thing, appeared, and still ap-ments, to take such steps as will best enable pear, to speak and plead for themselves. No cabals;—no private meetings;-no coming prepared for all possible events;-no secret manufacture of charges;-no tricks to overcome majorities;-but every thing fair, open, and manly, to be judged of by the justice of their employers, the equity of their country, and the candour and humanity of the civilized world. As long as the government subsisted, their parts appear to have been acted in it

them to preserve the spirit of their trusts; in no event whatsoever to surrender them, or submit to their subversion; and, by considering themselves as an epitome of the constitution of their country, to keep in mind the principles by which that constitution has been preserved, and on which it is established.

These are surely fair premises to argue from, when the question is not technical justi

fication, but palliation and excuse. The members of the council, in the majority of which the efficient government of Madras resided, were certainly as deeply responsible to the India Company in conscience, and on every principle of society, for the preservation of its constitution, from an undue extension of lord Pigot's power, as the other component parts of this government are answerable to the people of this country for keeping the king's prerogative within its legal limits; there can be no difference but that which I have stated, namely, that the one is subordinate, and the other supreme. But as, in the total absence of the superior power, subordination to it can only operate by an appeal to it for the ratification or annulment of acts already done, and not for directions what to do (otherwise, on every emergency, government must entirely cease), I trust it is not a strained proposition, to assert, that there can be no better rule of action, when subordinate rulers must act somehow, owing to their distance from the fountain of authority, than the history of similar emergencies in the government of their country, of which they are a type and

an emanation.

delegated trusts, from subversion by lord P. got, which, on the true principle of British government, is sufficient to render resistance meritorious, though not legal.

Where was the imminent state necessity st the Revolution in this country? King James suspended and dispensed with the laws.What laws?-Penal laws against both Papists and Protestant Dissenters. Would England have fallen into confusion and blood if the persecuted Papist had been suffered publicly to humbug himself with the mystery of tran substantiation, and the Independent to say his prayers without the mediation of a visible church?-Parliament, on the contrary, immediately after the Revolution, repealed many of those intolerant laws, with a preamble to the act that abolished them, almost copied verbatim from the preamble of the proclamation by which the king suspended them; yet, that suspension (although king James was, I trust, something more of an integral part of the government than lord Pigot was of that of Madras) most justly cost him the crown of these kingdoms. What was the principle of the Revolution? I hope it is well known, understood, and revered by all good men. The principle was, that the trustees of the people were not to suffer an infringement of the constitution, whether for good or for evil. All tyrants are plausible and cunning enough to give their encroachments the show of public good.-Our ancestors were not to surrender the spirit of their trusts, though at the expense of the form, and though urged by no imminent state necessity to defend them; no other, at least, than that which I call, and which the constitution has ever since called the first and most imminent of all state necessities, the inviolate preservation of delegated trusts from usurpation and subversion. This is the soul of the British government.-It is the very being of every human institution which deserves the name of government;without it, the most perfect model of society is a painful and laborious work, which a madman, or a fool, may, in a moment, kick down and destroy.

Now, my lord, I believe there is no doctrine more exploded, or more repugnant to the spirit of the British government, because the revolution is built upon its ruin, than that there must be an imminent political necessity, analogous to natural necessity, to justify the resistance of the other component parts of the government, if one steps out of its delegation, and subverts the constitution; I am not speaking of technical justification.-It would be nonsense to speak of law and a revolution in the same sentence.-But I say, the British constitution, which is a government of law, knows no greater state necessity than the inviolate preservation of the spirit of a public trust from subversion or encroachment, no matter whether the country would fall into anarchy or blood, if such subversion or encroachment were suffered to pass unresisted. A good Whig would swoon to hear such a qualification of resistance, even of the resistance of an integral part of legislation, Now, why does not the principle apply much less of a part merely ministerial, which, HERE? Why may not inferiors, in the absence in all governments, must be subordinate to of the superior, justly, though not legally, at the legislature, wherever it resides. Such a all events without sanguinary punishment, state necessity, analogous to natural neces- do, by a temporary act to be annulled, or rati sity, may be necessary to call out a private fied, by such superior, that which the superior man, but is not at all applicable to the powers would do finally, where there is no appeal at of a government. The defendants did not all? Will you punish men who were obliged, act as private men, but as governing powers; from their distance from the fountain of a for, although they were not, technically speak-thority, to act for themselves, only for having, the government, when not assembled by the president; yet they were in the spirit of law, and on every principle of human society, the rulers of the settlement.-The information charges the act as done by them in the public capacity of members of the council, in the majority of which the government did reside; and their act must, therefore, be taken to be a public act, for the preservation of their

ing, at all events, refused to surrender their trusts?-only for having saved the govern ment, committed to their charge, from sub version?-only for having acted, as it was the chief glory of our ancestors to have acted? The similitude does not, to be sure, hold throughout; but all the difference is in favour; our act was not peremptory and final, but temporary and submissive to annulment;

nor is the president of a council, equal only to each other individual in it, with an office merely ministerial, to be compared with the condensed executive majesty of this great kingly government, with a negative in legislation.

All I

all this, CONVICTED; surely, then, either the
jury, or I, mistake. If what I have advanced
be sound or reasonable in principle, the ver-
dict must be unjust. By no means.
have said is compatible with the verdict.
Had I been on the jury, I should have found
them guilty; but, had I been in the House of
Commons, I would have given my voice
against the prosecution. CONVICTION! Good
God! how could I doubt of conviction, when
I know that our patriot ancestors, who as-
sisted in bringing about the glorious Revolu-
tion, could not have stood justified in this
Court, though king William sat on the throne,
but must have stood self convicted criminals
without a plea to offer in their defence, had
not parliament protected them by acts of in-

Nothing that I have said could have been uttered without folly to a Jury. It could not have been uttered with less folly to your lordship, sitting in judgment, on this case, on a special verdict. They are not arguments of law; they are arguments of state, and the state ought to have heard them before it awarded the prosecution; but, having awarded it, your lordships now sit in their place to do justice. If the law, indeed, had prescribed a specific punishment to the fact charged, the judgment of the law must have followed the conviction of the fact, and your lordship could not have mitigated the sentence. They could only have sued to the state for indemnity. It would, in that case, have been the sentence of the law, not of the judge. But it is not so here A judge, deciding on a misdemeanor, is bound in conscience, in the silence of law, not to allot a punishment beyond his opinion of what the law, in its distributive justice, would have specifically allotted.

The majority of the council was the efficient government of Madras, or, in other words, the fegislature of the settlement, whose decisions the Company directed should be the order by which each one was to act, without giving any negative in legislation to the president, whose office was consequently (as I have before said) ministerial. This ministerial office he not only refused to perform, but assumed to himself, in effect, the whole government by dissolving a majority against him. Let me put this plain question to the Court.demnity! Ought such arbitrary, illegal dissolution to have been submitted to?-Ought the majority, which was, in fact, the whole government in substance, spirit, and effect, though not in regular form, to have suffered itself to be thus crumbled to pieces, and destroyed? Was there, in such a case, any safe medium between suffering both spirit and form to go out together, and thus sacrificing the form to preserve the spirit? and could the powers of the government have been assumed or exercised without bloodshed, if lord Pigot had been left at large? I appeal to your lordships, whether human ingenuity could have devised a middle road in the absence of all superior controul? Ought they to have acquiesced, and waited for the sentence of the directors, and, on his motion, played at shuttlecock with their trusts across the globe, by referring back questions to Europe, which they were sent out to Asia to decide? Where representatives doubt what are the wishes of their constituents, it may be proper to make such appeals; but, if they were subject to punishment for not consenting to them, whenever one of their body proposed them, government would be a mere mockery. It would be in the power of the president, whenever he pleased, to cripple all the proceedings of the council. It puts me in mind of the embargo once laid upon corn by the crown, during the recess of parliament, which was said, in a great assembly, to be but forty days tyranny at the outside; and it equally reminds me of the celebrated constitutional reply which was made on that occasion, which it would be indelicate for me to cite here, but which, I trust, your lordship has not forgotten.*

This would have been not only forty days tyranny at the outside, but four hundred days tyranny at the inside.—It would have been a base surrender of their trusts, and a cowardly compromising conduct unworthy of magistracy.

But the defendants are, notwithstanding

* Lord Mansfield's speech in the House of Lords against the dispensing power. See New Parl. Hist. Tol. 16, p. 251.

My lord, if these arguments, drawn from a reflection on the principles of society in general, and of our own government in particular, should, from their uncommonness in a court of justice, fail to make that immediate and decided impression, which their justice would otherwise insure to them, I beseech your lordship to call to mind, that the defendants who stand here for judgment, stand before you for acts done as the rulers of a valuable, immensely extended, and important country, so placed at the very extremity of the world, that the earth itself travels round her orbit in a shorter time than the Eastern deputy can hear the voice of the European superior; a country surrounded, not only with nations which policy, but which Nature, violated Nature! has made our enemies, and where government must, therefore, be always on the watch, and in full vigour, to maintain dominion over superior numbers by superior policy.-The conduct of men, in such situations, ought not surely to be measured on the narrow scale of municipal law. Their acts must not be judged of like the acts of a little corporation within the reach of a mandamus,