While he bestowed the highest and most merited praise on Mr. Verelst's honour, worth, and disinterestedness, he asserts that the too great tenderness of his disposition had made him govern with too lenient a hand; that he himself, by his farewell letter to the Select Committee, had done all in his power to guard him against this error, and to prompt him to vigorous measures. But he adds, that had his successor kept the tightest rein, he could not have done much service to the Company, as neither he nor any man could have long guarded against the mischiefs occasioned by the Directors themselves, when they took away the powers of the Select Committee. Nor was the Administration itself free from blame. When the Company had acquired an empire more extensive than any kingdom in Europe, France and Russia excepted, with 4,000,000_l._ of gross revenue, and trade in proportion, it might have been expected that such acquisitions would have invited the most serious attention of Ministers, and that some plan would have been devised, in concert with the Court of Directors, adequate to the occasion. Did they take it into consideration? "No, they did not."--"They thought of nothing but the present time, regardless of the future; they said, 'Let us get what we can to-day; let to-morrow take care for itself:' they thought of nothing but the immediate division of the loaves and fishes: nay, so anxious were they to lay their hands upon some immediate advantage, that they actually went so far as to influence a parcel of temporary proprietors to bully the Directors into their terms. It was their duty, Sir, to have called upon the Directors for a plan; and if a plan in consequence had not been laid before them, it would then have become their duty, with the aid and assistance of Parliament, to have formed one themselves. If Administration had done their duty, we should not now have had a speech from the throne intimating the necessity of Parliamentary interposition, to save our possessions in India from impending ruin."