Note 65 — LUNÆ, 14° DIE JUNII, 1784.

The territorial possessions in the East Indies were acquired to the Company, in virtue of grants from the Great Mogul, in the nature of offices and jurisdictions, to be held under him, and dependent upon his crown, with the express condition of being obedient to orders from his court, and of paying an annual tribute to his treasury. It is true that no obedience is yielded to these orders, and for some time past there has been no payment made of this tribute. But it is under a grant so conditioned that they still hold. To subject the King of Great Britain as tributary to a foreign power by the acts of his subjects; to suppose the grant valid, and yet the condition void; to suppose it good for the king, and insufficient for the Company; to suppose it an interest divisible between the parties: these are some few of the many legal difficulties to be surmounted, before the Common Law of England can acknowledge the East India Company's Asiatic affairs to be a subject matter of prerogative, so as to bring it within the verge of English jurisprudence. It is a very anomalous species of power and property which is held by the East India Company. Our English prerogative law does not furnish principles, much less precedents, by which it can be defined or adjusted. Nothing but the eminent dominion of Parliament over every British subject, in every concern, and in every circumstance in which he is placed, can adjust this new, intricate matter. Parliament may act wisely or unwisely, justly or unjustly; but Parliament alone is competent to it.