or fictitious, his actions were so illustrious, that few names in the registers of Time will excite more curiosity than that of William Pitt. When Mr. Conway presented the Bill of Indemnity to the House, he ushered it in with strong declarations against the Chancellor’s doctrine of necessity justifying a dispensing power. He was much applauded by Grenville for extending the Indemnity to the Council, the latter inveighing against Lord Camden, and ascribing his tenets to folly, ignorance, weakness, and wickedness, such as cost Charles I. his life, and James II. his crown. Conway, who felt that himself had gone too far, took that opportunity of apologizing for the Chancellor, who, he said, he believed was no friend to a dispensing power in an odious light: the dispensing power claimed by Charles and James had not been founded on necessity. The Bill was ordered to be printed. After the debate I asked Lord John Cavendish if it was not more desirable to have the dispensing power condemned by a Minister than by a man in opposition? CHAPTER XVIII. Lord Chatham proposes to examine the East India Company’s Affairs.-- His unaccountable conduct.--More signs of weakness in the Cabinet.-- Negotiation with the Duke of Bedford.--Bill of Indemnity.--Debates on the East India Question.--Attack on Lord Chatham in the House of Lords by the Duke of Richmond. These petty politics were soon absorbed in the consideration of a more momentous and more arduous affair. Restrained as Lord Chatham’s genius was by the tranquillity of Europe, and impeded as his plan had been by his own want of conduct, his soul was still expanding itself towards greater objects. With indignation, he beheld three Indian provinces, an empire themselves, in the hands of a company of merchants, who, authorized by their charter to traffic on the coast, had usurped so mighty a portion of his dominions from the Prince who permitted their commerce with his subjects. By what horrid treachery, fraud, violence, and blood the Company’s servants had stridden to such aggrandizement, was not a question a Minister was likely to ask. It is the cool humane man, who had no power to punish and redress such crimes, who alone reasons _on the manner how_, and _the right_ by which such acquisitions are obtained. The stupendous fortunes created by individuals struck more forcibly on the political eye of Lord Chatham. Above any view of sharing the plunder himself, he saw a prey that tempted him to make it more his country’s. By threats to intimidate the Company, and incline them to offer largely towards the necessities of Government, was the least part of his idea. Such a tribute would stand in the place of new taxes, or relieve the debts on the Civil List: could he induce the Parliament to think the Company had exceeded the powers of their charter, the whole property of their territorial acquisitions might be deemed forfeited to the Crown; this