Justice and expediency could be reconciled by one course, and one only;--that of buying up the assets and liabilities of the Company on terms the favourable character of which should represent the sincerity of the national gratitude.

Interest was to be paid from the Indian exchequer at the rate of ten guineas a year on every hundred pounds of stock; the Company was relieved of its commercial attributes, and became a corporation charged with the function of ruling Hindoostan; and its directors, as has been well observed, remained princes, but merchant princes no longer.
The machinery required for carrying into effect this gigantic metamorphosis was embodied in a bill every one of whose provisions breathed the broad, the fearless, and the tolerant spirit with which Reform had inspired our counsels.

The earlier Sections placed the whole property of the Company in trust for the Crown, and enacted that "from and after the 22nd day of April 1834 the exclusive right of trading with the dominions of the Emperor of China, and of trading in tea, shall cease." Then came clauses which threw open the whole continent of India as a place of residence for all subjects of his Majesty; which pronounced the doom of Slavery; and which ordained that no native of the British territories in the East should "by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, or colour, be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment." The measure was introduced by Mr.Charles Grant, the President of the Board of Control, and was read a second time on Wednesday the 10th July.

On that occasion Macaulay defended the bill in a thin House; a circumstance which may surprise those who are not aware that on a Wednesday, and with an Indian question on the paper, Cicero replying to Hortensius would hardly draw a quorum.

Small as it was, the audience contained Lord John Russell, Peel, O'Connell, and other masters in the Parliamentary craft.