that the Company had met this House half way, instead of petitioning, and quarrelling with the mouth that is to feed them. With respect to the gentlemen nominated for the supervision, they are themselves the best judges, whether their abilities and integrity are equal to the important service in which they were to engage. Had they, Sir, known the East Indies as well as I do, they would shudder at the bare idea of such a perplexing and difficult service. The most rigid integrity, with the greatest disinterestedness,--the greatest abilities with resolution and perseverance,--must be united in the man or men who undertake to reform the accumulating evils which exist in Bengal, and which threaten to involve the nation and the Company in one common ruin." The Bill was carried by a large majority, and finally passed both Houses. It would seem as if the Court of Directors had resolved, that whenever their affairs came before Parliament, they should, as far as depended on them, contrive to find Lord Clive employment in his private concerns. When the bill of last session was to be proposed, certain heavy charges had been brought up against him, and hung out as a terror. When the present session was about to open, and much attention expected to be paid to Indian affairs, Lord Clive, on the 4th November, received an intimation from the Court of Directors, that they had taken the opinions of counsel relative to the loss sustained by the Company from the payment of the balances due to the renters of salt-pans in Bengal, out of their treasury; the commission received by him upon the revenues of Bengal, after his departure thence; and the interest due on sums paid for duties on salt, betle-nut, and tobacco; and were advised that he, and the rest of the gentlemen concerned in the payment of these balances, were liable to make good the same; that they were accountable for interest on the duties on salt, &c., and that his Lordship was not entitled to the commission on the revenues; and therefore calling upon him to make good those demands, but expressing an earnest wish for an amicable adjustment, to save the expense and disagreeable circumstances of a suit in equity. After many delays in procuring even a statement of the amount of the demands thus intended to be made on him, his Lordship agreed to refer the whole to arbitrators, as they desired, and named on his side Mr. Madocks, an eminent counsel; when the Directors insisted that the referees should be merchant arbitrators; Lord Clive, with every appearance of reason, contended that the differences between them consisted of questions of law and government; and that, had they been commercial, a lawyer was not an improper arbitrator: in short, that they were receding from their own proposal; which gave reason to suspect that what they had in view was, not a decision, but a lawsuit. His Lordship judged correctly, for the Directors ordered a suit to be instituted.[188]