presented a Petition from Michael George Prendergast, for and on behalf of Monohur Doss, and of Seetul Baho, widow and legal representative of Duarcah Doss; setting forth,

"That, in the month of September, 1773, by a treaty between the East India Company and his excellency Sujah al Dowlah, the then vizier of Oude, it was, amongst other things, stipulated and agreed, that the said vizier should annually pay to the Company a subsidy of fifty lacks of rupees, and also maintain a certain military force; and that the finances of the said vizier became shortly afterwards very much deranged, and the subsidies not being regularly paid to the Company, occasioned considerable inconvenience to the Company's government in India; and that the vizier Sujah al Dowlah, having died in 1775, he was succeeded by his son Asoph al Dowlah, who had ceded to the East India Company the valuable district of Benares, and engaged for the payment of an additional subsidy of ten lacks of rupees, making in the whole, independent of the territorial cession, sixty lacks of rupees; and that, notwithstanding these important concessions to the East India Company, their demands and exactions upon the vizierate of Oude increased, and seemed to be regulated by their own necessities alone, and so rigorously were those ex- actions enforced, that the East India Company appointed their own military officers to the collection of the revenues of the state; and that the most noble the late marquis Cornwallis, having, in the year 1786, arrived in India as governor general, applied himself to the consideration of the affairs of the province of Oude, and, conceiving many of the difficulties under which he found the vizier to have been occasioned by the interference of the English government, thought proper to declare that no such interference should thenceforward take place; but, in order to secure the due and faithful administration of the vizier's finances, he most earnestly recommended that they should be placed under the direction and controul of a minister, to be nominated by the vizier, and approved by the government of Fort William, in which recommendation the vizier having acquiesced, a treaty or agreement was actually entered into between the two governments for the purpose of carrying the same into effect, and for limiting the demands of the Company to the sum of fifty lacks of rupees annually; and that Hyder Bey Khan was accordingly nominated by the vizier as a fit person; and such nomination having been approved and confirmed by lord Cornwallis, the said Hyder Bey Khan was efficiently appointed to such office, under an express stipulation that a certain and fixed portion only of the revenues should pass into the hands of the vizier for his personal and private purposes, and that the remainder should be received into the public treasury, and be there retained, in order to the faithful appropriation thereof to the purposes and public engagements of the state; and, in order more effectually to secure the success of this object, a British resident was allowed to remain at the court of the vizier, whose special duty it was to see its provisions carried into effect; and that the immediate effect of this arrangement, which was assiduously promulgated by the Bengal government, was to raise the credit of the government of Oude, to enable it to effect loans with facility, and to lower the rate of interest which it had theretofore been accustomed to pay on money taken up by the vizier from time to time, either to meet his own state exigencies, or the demands of the East India Company's government upon him; and that, under the operation of this financial system, and the prudent forbearance of the Company, for several years, from the ex- ercise of the baneful interference which had thrown the vizier's affairs into so much disorder, a new spring of credit was created for the vizier, as the public entertained full confidence that the provisions of the treaty or agreement entered into between lord Cornwallis and the vizier would be faithfully and permanently adhered to; and that the surplus revenues of the vizierate, after deducting the personal allowance made to himself, would be applied in satisfaction of the public obligations of the state; and that, although the principle of this arrangement was deemed equally just politic and expedient, still the adoption of it unfortunately was not tried until a period too late to rescue the government from the pecuniary embarrassments under which it laboured, and consequently financial distresses continued to be experienced up to the year 1795, when the strongest apprehensions being entertained as to the vizier's ability to pay the subsidy, the most anxious exertions were made use of by his ministers to obtain loans for that purpose; and individuals, Europeans as well as natives, were, by the most earnest entreaties, and solemn assurances of immediate re-payment, prevailed upon to advance considerable sums of money to the vizier, whereby he was enabled to discharge the arrears due to the Company in respect of the said subsidy, and to provide for other exigencies of state; and that, amongst other individuals who were so prevailed upon, the late Duarcah Doss and Monohur Doss, of the cities of Benares and Calcutta, and who had long conducted banking concerns throughout the vizier's dominions, were, in consequence of the full reliance which they placed in the British faith, induced to advance the said vizier the several sums of money specified and set forth in a schedule of securities, translated copies of which are annexed to the Petition; and that, though such securities may not in strict technical form import to be an immediate charge upon the territories of the said vizier, yet they were so considered by the said Duarcah Doss and Monohur Doss, and by all persons in official situations at Lucknow; and that, shortly after the loans made by the said Duarcah Doss and Monohur Doss, the said vizier, in direct violation of the aforesaid arrangement, and in fraud of his creditors, to whom the revenues were pledged, did, with the full privity and concurrence of the resident, whose duty it was to prevent such a proceeding, intercept the treasure on its way to the public treasury, and misapply the same; and that the government in India, fully sensible of the claims of the said vizier's creditors upon his justice, and of the expediency of his discharging the same with the least possible delay, did repeatedly urge the said vizier so to arrange his finances as to allow of his compliance with the demands upon him, and which he repeatedly engaged to do; and with a view to ascertain the extent of such demands, the then Company's resident at the court of Lucknow, in conjunction with the vizier's ministers, and under the authority of the respective governments, investigated the same, and reported to the government of Fort William, and also to the said vizier, the amount of debts, and, amongst others, the amount of the debt due to the claimants, which the board who had made, such investigation repeatedly declared and considered to be fair and just demands; and that, shortly after the death of the late vizier, Asoph al Dowlah, Saadut Alli Khan was placed on the musnud, he having, by an article in the treaty on the faith of which he ascended the musnud, previously engaged to discharge the debts of the said Asoph al Dowlah; and that, a few weeks afterwards, the said government of Fort William was, for various pecuniary considerations, prevailed on to release the said vizier from such article, stipulating for the payment of the debts of the said Asoph al Dowlah: but, although the considerations above adverted to induced the Bengal government to release the vizier from the operation of this article, yet the justice of the claimants' demand was so strongly impressed upon the mind of the governor general, that he was induced to press upon the adoption of the vizier, by the strongest recommendations, the necessity and justice of satifying it; and that, in the year 1801, although the payments of the subsidy to the said Company were regularly made, it was thought advisable by the government of Fort William to obtain a cession of territory from the vizier in lieu of such subsidy; in consequence of which a considerable extent of territory was ceded by the said vizier to the East India Company, the revenue of which greatly exceeded the amount of such subsidy, and most materially lessened the ability of the said vizier to do justice to his other creditors; and that, in adverting to this transaction, it is not the purpose of the petitioner to arraign its justice or to question its policy, considerations of the most imperious necessity may have induced the measure, and to the extent of the consequences produced by such necessity the petitioner would readily submit: but the petitioner hopes it may be permitted to remark, that, whatever might be the state exigence which called for the measure, it does not appear to have excluded that respect which is due to the rights of individuals; and that, to withdraw from the vizier so much of power over his revenue as might enable the government of Fort William to secure to it a more effective application, with a view to the general safety of the possessions of the said vizier and of the Company, may be regarded as a measure of the soundest policy, but, as it allowed of due regard being had to the rights of third persons, creditors of the state, the petitioner submits that the Company ought to have availed itself of the principles upon which parliament, in a case under somewhat similar but not equally strong circumstances, lately proceeded, and with the entire concurrence of the Company; and that the case to which the petitioner alludes is that of the cession of territory in the year 1802, by the nabob of the Carnatic, whose ancestors having contracted very considerable debts by bond or otherwise, commissioners were appointed, by the authority of parliament, to ascertain the nature and extent of such debts, and a provision was made by the same authority, with the consent of the Company, for the payment of what should appear to be fairly due out of the revenues of the said ceded territories; and that the petitioner will not detain the House by expatiating upon the principles of this legislative proceeding, which has added so much to the national character by its justice, and to that of the Company, by its sound and liberal policy, and which, by proving their regard to the claims of individuals, has so connected private rights with the public interest, as to secure to any future public exigence all the advantages which can be derived from individual exertions, to meet and relieve it; and that the petitioner, feeling the justice of the claimants' demand, most respectfully submitted it to the East India Company, in form of a memorial, praying, that the Company would be graciously pleased to take such measures as might be necessary to ascertain its amount, though the petitioner submitted that, after the investigation thereof which had taken place, no doubt could exist in regard thereto, and to make such provision out of the revenue of the ceded territory as would be necessary for its effectual discharge; and that the petitioner is sorry to state that the East India Company have not paid any attention to the claim, which compels the petitioner to solicit that justice from the House which he fully expected to have obtained for the claimants from the Company; and that the East India Company are in possession of ceded territory of considerably greater annual value than the amount of the stipulated subsidies, is a fact susceptible of the clearest and most incontrovertible proof; and that the revenue of such ceded territory was, in point of good faith, if not in point of legal charge, applicable to the payment of debts contracted for the defence of the state, or for the fulfilment of its engagements, will hardly be disputed; and that such was the occasion upon which the aforesaid debts due to the claimants were contracted, cannot be truly denied; upon what principle, therefore, the debt due to the claimants is resisted by the Company the petitioner is wholly at a loss to conceive; the East India Company may indeed, in the capacity of territorial sovereigns, be beyond the reach of judicial authority, but they are clearly subject to legislative animadversion and controul; technical difficulties may be opposed to the claimants' demand, but, if the House be satisfied as to the substantial justice of the claim, the petitioner is confident that objections of form will not be allowed to prevail against it; the petitioner did not call upon the East India Company to recognize the demand if they doubted of its validity, but respectfully requested the Company to take such steps as might satisfy them in that regard; and that the petitioner did not require the Company to discharge such demands however inconvenient it might be to them, but to make provision for its discharge out of the revenues of the ceded territories, which were at least morally subject to it; and that, in adopting this principle, the petitioner pursued that course which, under similar circumstances, the wisdom and justice of parliament had on a recent occasion prescribed to itself and the Company, and which, as between individuals, the law would have enforced; for the pe- titioner need not state to the House, that the law of England will not allow a debtor to injure the rights of a creditor by an act of bounty to a third person; and that the value of the ceded territories, so far as it exceeded the amount of the subsidies, must be regarded as bounty, cannot be denied; and that the value of the ceded territories does exceed the amount of the subsidies is admitted throughout the correspondence between the government of Fort William and the court of directors; and that the petitioners will not detain the House with further observation on the debts of the claimants, which originated in the wish of serving the British interest in India, by in a degree enabling the then vizier of Oude to fulfil his engagements with the government of Fort William, at a period which confessedly rendered his excellency's fulfilment of such engagements of the most serious importance to that government; and that although the Company in 1795, by their connivance with the vizier, prevented the revenues from reaching the public treasury, where they would have been duly applied, they have on various occasions recognized the claims of the petitioner's constituents, and admitted that they ought to be discharged out of the revenues of Oude; and, as the Company are now in possession of a considerable portion of territory, the revenue of which, subject to their claim for stipulated subsidies, ought, in good faith, to have been long since applied to the repayment of the debts so contracted, the petitioner most respectfully but confidently submits, that the surplus revenue ought no longer to be withheld from such its due appropriation, and that, as the claimants are residing in India, their signature to a Petition to the House could not be obtained without incurring so much delay as would be productive of injury to their interests, and especially in this peculiar crisis of the Company's affairs; and praying that the House will be pleased to take the circumstances of the claimants' case into consideration, and adopt such proceedings for their relief as the justice of it may require, the petitioner being ready to substantiate at the bar the facts above stated, and which, if necessary, he prays he may be permitted to support by his counsel.

The Petition was then brought up, and read, and ordered to lie on the table; after which Mr. Brougham gave notice, that he should, on next Tuesday fortnight, submit a proposition to the House respect- ing it, the nature of which proposition he thought it right to state, would be, that the Petition should be referred to a Select Committee.

The House then went into the Committee upon the Petitions against the Orders in Council.