In judging of those
merits nothing was done to bind them to any observation of what appeared
on their records. Nothing was done to compel them to prosecution or
complaint where delinquency became visible. The act, indeed, prescribed
that no servant of the Company abroad should be eligible into the
direction until two years after his return to England. But as this
regulation rather presumes than provides for an inquiry into their
conduct, a very ordinary neglect in the Court of Directors might easily
defeat it, and a short remission might in this particular operate as a
total indemnity. In fact, however, the servants have of late seldom
attempted a seat in the direction,--an attempt which might possibly
rouse a dormant spirit of inquiry; but, satisfied with an interest in
the proprietary, they have, through that name, brought the direction
very much under their own control.
As to the general authority of the Court of Directors, there is reason
to apprehend that on the whole it was somewhat degraded by the act whose
professed purpose was to exalt it, and that the only effect of the
Parliamentary sanction to their orders has been, that along with those
orders the law of the land has been despised and trampled under foot.
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