would have been for the right honourable and learned gen tleman not to have kept back any part of the evidence, but to have acted in a more open and manly way, and to have let them have the whole of Earl Cornwallis's letter before them by the word "whole" he did not mean the arguments of the noble earl respecting Indian politics; to those they had no pretensions; the subject was not before them, and, exclusive of the impropriety of making it public, they had nothing to do with it. For his part, the right honourable and learned gentleman would excuse him, if he dedeclared that, considering that Earl Cornwallis was at the fountain head of intelligence, upon the spot where the transactions he alluded to were going on, he was inclined to prefer the moderate, cool, and confined ideas of the noble earl, respecting the future state of the Company's affairs in Bengal, to the more sanguine speculations of the right honourable and learned gentleman, though clothed with high authority, and possessed undoubtedly of the means of obtaining much authentic information on the subject. Mr. Burke mentioned the magnitude of the proposition of taking nine millions of debt out of Bengal, and adding it to our debt at home; and after dwelling upon the difficulty and the time the liquidating so large a debt would take up, proceeded to take notice of the idea of drawing near a million out of the revenues of Bengal to Madras and Bombay, and after that expecting that those revenues could bear to be appropriated to the purchase of investments. He treated these speculations as extravagant and impracticable: he said, that he did not know whether he ought to consider such symptoms as the faculty did the facies Hippocratica, as the symptoms of approaching death, or of the possibility of cure; but to draw such sums out of Bengal, without making any return of specie or wealth, appeared to him as unreasonable as to expect a human being to exist under a state of perpetual bleeding and purging, without administering the smallest portion of food to support such an exhausting practice. What was to fructify our provinces and to renovate their riches after we had drained them in such a violent way? Instead of rice we should see nothing but fields of jungles or weeds, and instead of the race of men, the race of the royal tiger would increase and multiply; he explained the expression of the royal tiger to be symbolical of the British government, declaring, that as extraordinary power had longer claws than ordinary authority, so might it well be termed the royal tiger. Among other bad symptoms he spoke of the increased circulation of paper of Bengal at a high discount, and said, that if the fact were true that the Company paid their officers with paper, which they refused to receive back in payment themselves, the symptom wore an alarming aspect, and gave the case the appearance of desperation. He mentioned Mr. Larkin's plan of reducing the quantity of paper in circulation, and stated the circumstance of a large increase of paper in circulation, growing out of a plan of reduction, and attended with a larger discount than ever, to be another, and a worse symptom than any. He commended the idea of a fixed quit-rent as the only way of giving happiness and security to the landholders; and in answer to Mr. Dundas's declaration, that our provinces in India were the most flourishing, said, that it would be wonderful if they were not, when we had possessed ourselves of the finest provinces in India, lying between two rivers which would fertilize any country in the world, and containing the whole of that delightful coast, a small portion on the back parts excepted, from Bengal down to Cape Comorin. But it was not rightly stated by the right honourable and learned gentleman, when he said that our provinces were the most flourishing; there were some few others, he believed, more flourishing, and others again far worse. The rajah of Berar, for instance, governed in a province not to be talked of in comparison with Bengal (formerly called the Paradise of India), with Bahar, Orissa, Oude, and Benares: the face of the kingdom of Berar was covered with immense mountains and forests. But let it not be, said Mr. Burke, the right honourable and learned gentleman's boast, that the British provinces were finer and more fertile than the kingdom of Berar; let it be his triumph to say, that under the British government the natives lived as happy, the soil was as productive, and the revenues were as ample, as under the native princes whom we had succeeded. The resolutions moved by Mr. Dundas were agreed to. LONDON PETITION AGAINST FORESTALLERS AND ON REGRATORS. May 16. N the 4th of May a petition was presented to the House from the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the city of London, in common council assembled, setting forth, "That the great advance in the price of meat, and other provisions, of late years, by distressing the middling and lower classes of people, has a tendency, in the apprehension of the petitioners, immediately to injure, and at length to destroy the manufactures and commerce of the kingdom; and that the petitioners are advised, and believe, that such advance has been partly occasioned, and is likely to increase, by the repeal, in the twelfth year of his present majesty, of most of the laws, which the wisdom and experience of our ancestors had found necessary to prevent forestalling and regrating cattle, and other articles of provision, and the petitioners apprehend the said evils may in some degree be removed, by reviving to a proper extent the laws against forestalling and regrating, and by ascertaining, licensing, and regulating, the persons employed as salesmen or factors in cattle and other provisions; and that the petitioners have entered into a very serious investigation of the cause of the said evils, which, from the importance of the subject, has occupied their attention for a great length of time, and has thereby prevented them from presenting a petition within the time limited by the House for receiving petitions for private bills: And therefore praying, That they may now be at liberty to present a petition for leave to bring in a bill, or bills, to pre. vent forestalling and regrating, and for licensing salesmen, factors, and others, employed in the sale of cattle, or other provisions, or to have such other relief in the premises as to the House shall seem meet." On the 16th, it was moved by Alderman Le Mesurier, and seconded by Alderman Newnham, "That the said petition be referred to the consideration of a committee." Alderman Townsend declared the motion to be founded neither in necessity nor wisdom, nor fit for the House to countenance. There had been, he said, plenty of cattle at Smithfield all the winter, and as the season advanced, the price of butchers' meat would undoubtedly be cheaper. He reminded the House, that the laws against forestallers and regrators had long since been repealed on the recommendation of the present chief justice of the court of king's bench, and asked, if the House would, upon the suggestion of a committee of common council-men, go back and revive what the deliberative wisdom of the legislature had upon experience determined should no longer exist? There were some vexatious suits, he understood, now going on upon some obsolete statutes, and if the present motion were listened to, vexatious prosecutions would be multiplied, and the only object obtained would be, that a few common council-men would be fed more cheaply than at present. He hoped, therefore, that the House would not suffer the petition. to be referred to a committee, and moved, that the motion be rejected. Mr. BURKE observed, that he felt it difficult to refrain from smiling, whilst he discovered that the worthy aldermen and common council of London were so extremely anxious to be well fed. He presumed that the application to revive the laws against forestallers and regrators came from the aldermen concerned in it after dinner; for their petition had all the marks of plenitude about it. It was an old saying, that Heaven sent provisions, but that the devil sent cooks. So, in this case, he conceived, that having fed heartily, the aldermen went to quarrel with the cooks; but he advised them to think better of the matter. He begged them, at all events, not to be uneasy; for, if meat had been a little dear, when the price of feeding cattle was also dear, triumph to say, that under the British The resolutions mov Lo tely ; that there and in conse showered down coming in, and every eat and vegetables. As wished to ensure the con they should continue to make kokkar zbate mapkins tucked under their chins, he should oppose the motion against regrators and forestallers. We they had plenty of provisions, he advised them not erhouds with the providers; but to let them well as themselves. In the instance before the House the petitioners certainly acted under a mistake; but my, their very ignorance ought not to be despised; and inthe crees even of the city of London were respectable; deed they were being fed, as ignorant only as to the manner of their every body well knew. As he had been the humble instrument of moving the repeal of the laws against forestallers and regrators, he wished to stand up and prevent the dry bones of those gibbeted laws from being again clothed with flesh, and called from their merited fate into existence; but as he wished to treat the city of London with good humour, as they were willing to treat every body who visited them with good cheer, he hoped that so harsh a measure as the rejection of their petition would not be adopted; but that he might be permitted to move to put off the consideration of the motion till the first of August, by which time the aldermen would have had a sufficient number of delicious dinners to convince them, in their own way, of the impropriety of their purpose, as well as of its being altogether unnecessary. Mr. Burke spoke of the commerce in provisions, opposing it to commerce properly so called, and begged leave to ask the worthy alderman who had introduced the business, whether he was not aware that a free commerce was that species of commerce most likely to flourish and to prosper? Let him, therefore, ask himself whether a free commerce in provisions was |