An Act of 18151 gave power to extend the limits of the presidency towns, and amended some of the minor provisions of the Act of 1813.

An Act of 1818 2 removed doubts as to the validity of certain Indian marriages, a subject which has always presented much difficulty, but which has now been dealt with by Indian legislation 3.

An Act of 1820 enabled the East India Company to raise and maintain a corps of volunteer infantry.

5

An Act of 1823 charged the revenues of India with the payment of additional sums for the pay and pensions of troops serving in India, and regulated the pensions of Indian bishops and archdeacons, and the salaries and pensions of the judges of the supreme courts.

The same Act authorized the grant of a charter for a supreme court of Bombay in substitution for the recorder's court. The prohibition on settling in India without a licence was still retained. But restrictions on Indian trade were gradually removed, and a consolidating Act of 1823 expressly declared that trade might be carried on in British vessels with all places within the limits of the Company's charter except China.

6

Another Act of 18237 consolidated and amended the laws for punishing mutiny and desertion of officers and soldiers in the Company's service.

An Act of 18248 transferred the island of Singapore to the East India Company.

9

Acts of 1825 and 1826 10 further regulated the salaries of Indian judges and bishops, and regulated the appointment of juries in the presidency towns.

8

5 Geo. IV, c. 108. Singapore was placed under the Colonial Office by

the Straits Settlements Act, 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 115, 8. I).

96 Geo. IV, c. 85.

10

7 Geo. IV, c. 37.

1

An Act of 1828 1 declared the real estates of British subjects dying within the jurisdiction of the supreme courts at the presidency towns to be liable for payment of their debts. Other Acts of the same year applied the East India Mutiny Act to the force known as the Bombay Marine 2, and extended to the East Indies sundry amendments of the English criminal law 3.

4

And an Act of 1832 authorized the appointment of persons other than covenanted civilians to be justices of the peace in India, and repealed the provisions requiring jurors to be Christians.

Act of

When the time came round again for renewing the Com- Charter pany's charter, Lord William Bentinck's peaceful régime had 1833. lasted for five years in India; the Reform Act had just been carried in England, and Whig principles were in the ascendant. Bentham's views on legislation and codification were exercising much influence on the minds of law reformers. Macaulay was in Parliament, and was secretary to the Board of Control, and James Mill, Bentham's disciple, was the examiner of India correspondence at the India House. The Charter Act of 1833, like that of 1813, was preceded by careful inquiries into the administration of India. It introduced important changes into the constitution of the East India Company and the system of Indian administration.

The territorial possessions of the Company were allowed to remain under their government for another term of twenty years; but were to be held by the Company in trust for His Majesty, his heirs and successors, for the service of the Government of India.'

The Company's monopoly. of the China trade, and of the tea trade, was finally taken away.

3 3 & 4 Will. IV, c. 85. The Act received the Royal Assent on August 28, 1833, but did not come into operation, except as to appointments and the like, until April 22, 1834 (s. 117).

The Company were required to close their commercial business and to wind up their affairs with all convenient speed. Their territorial and other debts were charged on the revenues of India, and they were to receive out of those revenues an annual dividend at the rate of £10 108. per cent. on the whole amount of their capital stock (i. e. £630,000 a year), but this dividend was to be subject to redemption by Parliament on payment of £200 sterling for every £100 stock, and for the purpose of this redemption a sum of two million pounds was to be paid by the Company to the National Debt Commissioners and accumulated with compound interest until it reached the sum of twelve millions 1.

The Company, while deprived of their commercial functions, retained their administrative and political powers, under the system of double government instituted by previous Acts, and, in particular, continued to exercise their rights of patronage over Indian appointments. The constitution of the Board of Control was modified, but as the powers of the Board were executed by its president the modifications had no practical effect. The Act re-enacted provisions of former Acts as to the 'secret committee' of the Court of Directors, and the dispatches to be sent through that committee, and it simplified the formal title of the Company by authorizing it to be called the East India Company.

No very material alteration was made in the system on which the executive government was to be carried on in India.

The superintendence, direction, and control of the whole civil and military government were expressly vested in a governor-general and councillors, who were to be styled 'the Governor-General of India in Council. This council was increased by the addition of a fourth ordinary member,

As to the financial arrangements made under these provisions, see the evidence of Mr. Melvill before the Lords Committee of 1852.

2 It will be remembered that the Governor-General had been previously the Governor-General of Bengal in Council.

who was not to be one of the Company's servants, and was not to be entitled to act as member of council except for legislative purposes 1. It need hardly be stated that the fourth member was Macaulay.

The overgrown Presidency of Bengal 2 was to be divided into two distinct presidencies, to be called the Presidency of Fort William and the Presidency of Agra. But this provision never came into operation. It was suspended by an enactment of 1835 (5 & 6 Will. IV, c. 52), and the suspension was continued indefinitely by the Charter Act of 1853 (16 & 17 Vict. c. 95, s. 15).

The intention was that each of the four presidencies, Fort William, Fort St. George, Bombay, and Agra, should have, for executive purposes, a governor and council of its own. But the governor-general and his council were to be, for the present, the governor and council of Fort William, and power was given to reduce the members of the council, or even suspend them altogether and vest the executive control in a governor alone 3.

Important alterations were made by the Act of 1833 in the legislative powers of the Indian Government. At that

6

date there were five different bodies of statute law in force in the (Indian) empire. First, there was the whole body of statute law existing so far as it was applicable, which was introduced by the Charter of George I and which applied,

The duty of the fourth ordinary member' (under the Act of 1833)

' was confined entirely to the subject of legislation; he had no power to sit or vote except at meetings for the purpose of making laws and regulations; and it was only by courtesy, and not by right, that he was allowed to see the papers or correspondence, or to be made acquainted with the deliberations of Government upon any subject not immediately connected with legislation.' Minute by Sir Barnes Peacock of November 3, 1859.

2

It had been increased by the addition of Benares in 1775, of the modern Orissa in 1803, of large territories in the North-West in 1801-1803, and of Assam, Arakan, and Tenasserim in 1824.

3 The power of reduction was exercised in 1833 by reducing the number of ordinary members of the Madras and Bombay councils from three to two (Political Dispatch of December 27, 1833). The original intention was to abolish the councils of the minor presidencies, but, at the instance of the Court of Directors, their retention was left optional.

at least, in the presidency towns. Secondly, all English Acts subsequent to that date, which were expressly extended to any part of India. Thirdly, the regulations of the governorgeneral's council, which commence with the Revised Code of 1793, containing forty-eight regulations, all passed on the same day (which embraced the results of twelve years' antecedent legislation), and were continued down to the year 1834. They only had force in the territories of Bengal. Fourthly, the regulations of the Madras council, which spread over the period of thirty-two years, from 1802 to 1834, and are [were] in force in the Presidency of Fort St. George. Fifthly, the regulations of the Bombay Code, which began with the revised code of Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone in 1827, comprising the results of twenty-eight years' previous legislation, and were also continued into 1834, having force and validity in the Presidency of Fort St. David 1.

In 1833,' says Mr. Cowell in continuation, the attention of Parliament was directed to three leading vices in the process of Indian government. The first was in the nature of the laws and regulations; the second was in the ill-defined authority and power from which these various laws and regulations emanated; and the third was the anomalous and sometimes conflicting judicatures by which the laws were administered.'

The Act of 1833 vested the legislative power of the Indian Government exclusively in the Governor-General in Council, who had been, as has been seen, reinforced by the addition of a fourth legislative member. The four Presidential Governments were merely authorized to submit to the GovernorGeneral in Council drafts or projects of any laws or regulations which they might think expedient,' and the GovernorGeneral in Council was required to take these drafts and projects into consideration and to communicate his resolutions thereon to the Government proposing them.

1 Cowell, Tagore Lectures of 1872. For Fort St. David' read' Bombay.' See also Harington's Analysis of the Bengal Regulations.