[13] The third resolution was, “That until provision shall have been made by the Assembly for furnishing the King’s troops with all the necessaries required by the said Act (of 5 Geo. III.) the Government, and Council, and Assembly be restrained and prohibited from passing or assenting to any act of Assembly, &c.” It was opposed at considerable length by Mr. Pownall, late Governor of Massachusets, on the ground that the provisions of the Act were incompatible with the nature of the people and the circumstances of many parts of the country, and that its object might be effectually obtained by a colonial act, such as the Assembly of Massachusets had passed at his recommendation some time before. Governor Pownall’s speech is reported, probably by himself, in Parl. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 331.--E. [14] The previous discussions of the East India question are noticed in the Second Volume pp. 394, 427, 449. They convey no exalted notion of the sagacity or virtue of the parties concerned in them. The sole object of the Ministers appears to have been to extort the largest possible sum of money from the Company, without regard to the prosperity of our commercial relations with India, the proper administration of the territories of the Company, or the welfare of the Indian population. The Company in like manner, directors and proprietors, displayed an utter unfitness for the discharge of the vast jurisdiction to which they laid claim. The venality and rapacity of their officers in India almost found a parallel in the disgraceful trafficking for votes and patronage in the Court of Proprietors, and the speculations and maladministration of the directors. Their affairs had fallen into great disorder,--the natural result of these practices on such a vicious system as the annual election of the directors and the low amount of the franchise of the proprietors. It was no wonder that all sought to escape any interference or control on the part of the Government. Strange to say, these crying evils were regarded with indifference by the public, and every effort made by Government to repress them met with determined resistance from the great mercantile interests of the City of London. Indeed the cause of the Company became so popular that many of the leading Whigs very inconsistently yielded to the general feeling, and were found among its warmest advocates. Conway wanted firmness to oppose this delusion. Of all the Ministers, Lord Chatham alone did not entirely forget that he was a statesman. He protested throughout against the rights claimed by the Company over the conquered provinces, and he did not disguise his contempt for that body. Indistinctly as his views are expressed, and extravagant as may have been his belief of the extent of the revenues of the Company, he appears to have carried his views for their appropriation beyond those of mere revenue considerations to this country, and if his health had