It is difficult to pronounce what would have been the issue of this contest, if the wishes of the crown and the commons had continued to be fairly balanced against each other. But the public voice was decidedly ex pressed in favour of the new minister, whose popularity was recorded in the numerous addresses in his favour from every quarter of the nation. The majorities of the opposition, in the commons, were also visibly declining, and their last remonstrance was carried by a solitary vote. The measures of the coalition grew less bold, as their ranks were thinned by desertion ; so that, in March, the supplies were regularly voted, and the mutiny bill passed without a division. Still, however, it was thought unsafe to trust farther to a parliament, from whose resistance the executive had escaped, only by the desertion of temporising members. It was, there fore, in spite of the late promise of his majesty, dis solved on the 25th of March, and a new one convened on the 18th of May.
The elections for the new parliament were wholly favourable to ministers ; and so complete was the rout of the coalition party, that of 160 members who lost their seats, nearly the whole were the friends of either Mr Fox or lord North. The most important business of the first session was the arrangement of a plan for the future government of India. The bill which Mr Pitt introduced for this purpose, was founded on the same principles with one which he had formerly proposed, but which the late parliament had rejected, during their struggles m ith him, after his first appointment. By this bill, a board of controul was to be established, of which the commissioners were to be of the rank of privy coun sellors ; they were to be appointed by the king, and re moveable at his pleasure. They were to eneek, super intend, and controul, the civil and military government and revenue of the company. The dispatches, trans mitted by the court of directors to the different presi dencies, were to be previously subjected to the inspec tion of the superior board, and countersigned by them. The directors were enjoined to pay obedience to the orders of the board, touching civil and military govern ment, and revenues ; and in case such orders, at any time, related to points not connected with these, they were empowered to appeal to Ili, majesty, whose deci sion was to be final. The appointment, by the court of directory, to the office of governor general, president, or counsellor in the different presidencies, was to be subject to the approbation and recal of his majesty. A
high tribunal was created for the trial of Indian delin quents, consisting of three judges, one from each court, of four peers, and six members of the House of Com mons, who were authorised to judge without appeal, to award, in case of conviction, the punishment of fines and imprisonment, and to declare the party convicted incapable of serving the East India company. Mr Fox, in opposing the bill, pronounced it, at once, insufficient, insidious, and unconstitutional. It pretended to take a controul over the company without invading their char ters ; but it did invade their charters, by the enlarged power of the board of controul. Yet it did not transfer that power to the proper channel, to which all power ought to revert, to the parliament, but drew the richest servants of the company into a dangerous dependence upon the crown. But Mr Fox, with his accustomed eloquence and powers of discrimination, was unable to excite the general attention to the demerits of the mea sure in question. The bill had received the assent of the East India company ; though slowly and reluctantly given, it was carried triumphantly through both houses, and was the subject of but little emotion without the walls of parliament. The public, who beheld with in difference the whole patronage of India, virtually vest ed, by one act, in the crown, expressed considerable disapprobation at an act which passed during this session, entitled "the commutation act," by which the ancient duty on tea was lowered, and the deficiency to the re venue made up by a tax upon windows. The supplies of the year returned a loan of six millions, which was negociated by the minister, at nearly five per cent., with a douceur, to the subscribers of six lottery tickets, for every thousand pounds. Provisions were made, during the session, for paying off the arrears of the un funded debt, left at the conclusion of the war, amount ing to nearly 20 millions, by other taxes, which, upon the whole, were allowed to be happily and judiciously chosen. The peace which the nation now enjoyed, and the firm hold of his power, which the minister kept, en abled him to bestow his attention on plans of commer cial and financial arrangement. On the 24th of January 1785, the session was opened by a speech from the throne, the principal feature of which, was a recom mendation to parliament to apply their earnest attention to the adjustment of such points, in the commercial in tercourse of Great Britain, as had not been yet finally arranged.