7
\

18

subordinate to the Legislature, and legislation
must be, if power and responsibility are to go together,
 the unfettered expression of sovereign
authority, wherever that authority may reside, or
from whatever source it be derived, whether from
an electoral body or an absolute prince.

The plan of controlling the Company's government
 by the King’s Court entirely failed. The
tribunal came to be regarded by the natives, for
whose protection it was established, with the utmost
abhorrence. The policy which shaped the Regulating
 Act was well-intentioned, but it was
rashly and ignorantly executed. It had the effect
of seriously endangering British power in India.
The anarchy which ensued continued until the
policy of the Regulating Act was reversed, and
Indian society assumed the form which it, more or
less closely, retained till the Company and the
Mogal Empire vanished.

The Amending Act of 1780-81.

The dissensions between the executive government
 and the independent Supreme Court had
been so serious that the former had been forced
into open opposition to the strictly lawful
authority of the latter, in order to carry on the
government in the provinces at all ; and it was
consequently one of the important features of the
act that the members of the government should be
indemnified for all such acts and proceedings.