"The City," Benjamin Vaughan wrote to Shelburne, "will have confidence in none more than in your Lordship. I affirm that your Lordship is held an injured person by the nation at large. Among the great you may have been too neglectful, and to your unpopularity there I have nothing to say."[1] From Birmingham Priestley sent to say that the Coalition was most unpopular,[2] and addresses continued to pour in thanking the King for the peace.
Early in the winter session of 1783 the East India Bill of Mr. Fox was brought forward. The Charter was to be renewed, but the Bill proposed to establish a board consisting of seven persons, who should be invested with full powers for four years to appoint and displace officers in India, and to control the trade of the Company and the government of the country. The Coalition indeed had no choice as to dealing with the question. Committees of the House of Commons had sat and reported, and as in the time of Clive, so now in 1783 it became clear that gross oppression and cruelty had accompanied the progress of the English arms. Shelburne had recalled Sir Elijah Impey the Chief Justice of Bengal to reply at home to the charges made against him, and had sent out Sir William Jones to discharge his duties until the post was permanently filled. The King's speech in December 1782 had called the attention of Parliament to the necessity of framing some fundamental laws which might make the connection with Great Britain a blessing instead of a curse to India. In April 1783, shortly after the fall of the Ministry, Dundas brought forward a Bill appointing a new Governor-General, and giving him full powers to remedy abuses, and authority to overrule his Council. The new Governor-General was to be Lord Cornwallis, to whom
- ↑ Vaughan to Shelburne, 1783.
- ↑ Orde to Shelburne, December 1783.
profligate people." Carlisle Papers, 613, March 30th, 1783. Hist. MSS. Commission Reports. Comte Adhémar, the new French Ambassador, wrote as follows to M. de Vergennes: "Le Ministre populaire (Monsieur Fox) est un étrange Ministre des Affaires Étrangères; et lorsqu'il aura perdu sa popularité ce qui's'achemine beaucoup, je ne sais ce qui lui restera." March 30th, 1783. Histoire de la France et de l'Amérique, par George Bancroft, traduit et annoté par le Comte Adolphe de Circourt, iii. 59-60.
