The New Review February 1943

Summary

Many of the men who returned from India with large fortunes entered or contested seats in Parliament bought votes in the Court of the East India Proprietors swayed the opinions and patronage of the Directors and played an obtrusive and prominent part in the intrigues of the Courts of the Company and of the House of Commons. [...] the Arcot Interest which was mostly composed of the creditors and agents of the Nawab of the Carnatic ; and the Hastings Interest which was constituted by the personal friends and supporters of Warren Hastings in the stormy days of his Governor-Generalship (17.74-85). [...] An idea of the prominent part that these powerful and vested interests played in the Parliamentary politics of the times and in the Direction of the Company can be had from an analysis of the status and character of the members of the Commons that sat in Parliament in November 1783 on the eve of the defeat of Fox an c1 North over their notorious India Bills. [...] The worst feature of the matter was that Sulivan now joined forces with Atkinson who was Benfield's agent and who wanted to bring about the annulment of the assignment of the Carnatic revenues to the Company and promised to support him in the claim for the liquidation of the Nawab's private debts on the definite condition that Atkinson should join forces with him to get the assignment cancelled. [...] All the particulars of his introductory stanzas like the sleeping maiden the descent of the queen of the spirits in her pearly and pellucid car the revelation of the supernatural apparition yolor also declares that she knows all the thoughts of mankind the favour bests ed upon Ianthe and the removal of the maiden's soul to 'the cloud-palace 'Shelley must have found' in Jones's poem.

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