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Title: The Letters of Gracchus on the East India Question

Author: William Augustus Miles

Release date: August 31, 2015 [eBook #49835]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
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THE LETTERS

GRACCHUS

ON THE

_EAST INDIA QUESTION_.

_LONDON_:

PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD,

BOOKSELLER AND PUBLISHER,

NO. 190, OPPOSITE ALBANY, PICCADILLY.

1813.


Printed by S. GOSNELL, Little Queen Street, London.




ADVERTISEMENT.


The following Letters appeared in the MORNING POST, at the dates which
are annexed to them. The impartial Reader will find in them a strong
determination, to uphold the public rights of the Country, with respect
to the India Trade; but he will not discover any evidence of a desire to
lower the just, and well-earned honours, of THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, nor
any symptom of a disposition hostile to their fair pretensions.

LETTERS

OF

GRACCHUS.




LETTER I.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE EAST INDIA QUESTION.


_Tuesday, January 12, 1813._

The crisis, at which the affairs of the East India Company are now
arrived, is one which involves the most important interests of the
British Empire. It would be unnecessary to prove a proposition which is
so universally acknowledged and felt. It has happened however, that, in
our approaches towards this crisis, the Public understanding has been
but little addressed upon the subject; so that the appeal which is now
suddenly made to their passions and imaginations, finds them unprepared
with that knowledge of the true circumstances of the case, which can
alone enable them to govern those passions, and control those
imaginations. Let us then endeavour to recover the time which has been
lost, by taking a deliberate view of the circumstances which produce
this crisis.

The crisis, is the proximity of the term which may conclude the East
India Company's rights, to the exclusive trade with India and China, and
to the powers of government now exercised by them over the Indian
Empire.

The rights of the East India Company are two-fold; and have long been
distinguished as, their _permanent_ rights, and their _temporary_
rights. Those rights are derived to them from distinct Charters, granted
to them at different times by Parliament. By the former, they were
created a _perpetual_ Corporate Society of Merchants, trading to
India[1]. By the latter, they obtained, for a _limited period of time_,
the exclusive right of trading with India and China, and of executing
the powers of government over those parts of the Indian territory, which
were acquired either by conquest or by negotiation. The Charter
conveying the latter limited rights, is that which will expire in the
course of the ensuing year 1814; on the expiration of which, the
exclusive trade to the East will be again open to the British population
at large, and the powers of the India Government will lapse in course
to the Supreme Government of the British Empire, to be provided for as
Parliament in its wisdom may judge it advisable to determine.

The renewal of an _expired_ privilege cannot be pursued upon a ground of
_right_. The exclusive Charter of the Company is _a patent_, and their
patent, like every other patent, is limited as to _its duration_. But
though the patentee cannot allege a ground of right for the renewal of
his patent, he may show such strong pretensions, such good claims in
equity, such weighty reasons of expediency for its renewal, as may
ensure its attainment. Such are the claims and the pretensions of the
East India Company to a renewal of their Charter; and as such they have
been promptly and cheerfully received, both by the Government and the
country at large.

But the progress of society, during a long course of years, is of a
nature to produce a considerable alteration in the general state of
things; the state of things must, therefore, naturally be called into
consideration, upon the expiration of the term of years which determines
the exclusive Charter of the East India Company; in order to inquire,
whether that Charter should be renewed precisely in the same terms, and
with the same conditions, as before; or whether the actual state of
public affairs demands, that some alteration, some modification, of
terms and conditions, should be introduced into the Charter or System
which is to succeed.

The arduous task of this investigation must necessarily fall upon those
persons, who chance to be in the Administration of the Country, at the
latest period to which the arrangements for the renewal of the Charter
can be protracted; and it is hardly possible to imagine a more difficult
and perplexing position, for any Administration. Those persons, if they
have any regard for the duties which they owe to the Public, will
consider themselves as standing _between two interests_; the interest of
those who are about to lose an exclusive right, and the interest of
those who are about to acquire an open and a common one. They will be
disposed to listen, patiently and impartially, to the pretensions of
both parties; of those who pray for the renewal of an exclusive
privilege, and of those who pray that they may not be again wholly
excluded from the right which has reverted. And although they may amply
allow the preference which is due to the former petitioners, yet they
will endeavour to ascertain, whether the latter may not, with safety to
the public interest, receive some enlargement of the benefits, which the
opportunity opens to them, and from which they have been so long
excluded.

While they thus look alternately to each of these interests, and are
engaged in striving to establish a reconciliation between the two, it
will be neither equitable nor liberal for one of the interested parties
to throw out a doubt to the Public, whether they do this "from a
consciousness of strength, and a desire of increasing their own power
and influence, or from a sense of weakness and a wish to strengthen
themselves by the adoption of popular measures[2]." And the author of
the doubt may find himself at length obliged to determine it, by an
awkward confession, that Ministers do not do it "with any view of
augmenting their own patronage and power[3]."

It is thus that the Ministers of the Crown have conducted themselves, in
the embarrassing crisis into which they have fallen. Fully sensible of
the just and honourable pretensions which the East India Company have
established in the course of their long, important, and distinguished
career, they have consented to recommend to Parliament, _to leave the
whole system of Indian Government and Revenue to the Company_, under the
provisions of the Act of 1793; together with _the exclusive trade to
China_, as they have hitherto possessed them; but, at the same time,
considering the present state of the world, and its calamitous effects
upon the commercial interest in general, they are of opinion, that some
participation in the Indian trade, thus reverting, might possibly be
conceded, under due regulations, to British merchants not belonging to
the East India Company; which would not impair the interests either of
the Public or of the Company.

In this moderate opinion, they are fully justified, by the consent of
the Company, to admit the Merchants of the out-ports to a share in the
Indian trade. And thus far, all is amicable. But the out-port Merchants
having represented to Government, that the condition, hitherto annexed
to a Licensed Import Trade,--of bringing back their Indian Cargoes to
the port of London, and of disposing of them solely in the Company's
sales, in Leadenhall Street,--would defeat the object of the concession;
and that the delay, embarrassment, and perplexity, which such an
arrangement would create, would destroy the simple plan of their
venture; and having therefore desired, that they might be empowered to
return with their cargoes to the ports from whence they originally
sailed, and to which all their interests are confined; Government, being
convinced of the justice of the representation, have proposed that the
Import Trade may be yielded to the Out-ports, _under proper
regulations_, as well as the Export Trade. To this demand the Court of
Directors peremptorily refuse their consent; and upon this _only point_
the parties are now at issue. This question alone, retards the final
arrangements for the renewal of their Charter.

Yet it is this point, which one of the parties interested affirms, to be
"a question of the last importance to the safety of the British Empire
in India, and of the British Constitution at home;" and therefore
undertakes to resist it, with all the determination which the importance
of so great a stake would naturally inspire. But, when we compare the
real measure in question with the menacing character which is thus
attempted to be attached to it, we at once perceive something so
extravagantly hyperbolical, something so disproportionate, that it at
once fixes the judgment; and forces upon it a suspicion, that there is
more of policy and design, than of truth and sincerity in the assertion.
That objections to the measure might arise, capable of distinct
statement and exposition, is a thing conceivable; and, these being
stated, it would be a subject for consideration, how far they were
removable. But to assert, in a round period, that the safety of the
empire in Europe and Asia is fundamentally affected in the requisition,
that a ship proceeding from Liverpool or Bristol to India, might return
from India to Liverpool or Bristol, instead of to the Port of London,
is calculated rather to shake, than to establish, confidence in those
who make the assertion. Yet this is the question which the country is
now called upon to consider, as one tending to convulse the British
Constitution. Surely, if the foundations of the empire in both
hemispheres have nothing more to threaten them, than whether the
out-port shipping shall carry their cargoes home to their respective
ports, or repair to the dock-yards in the port of London, the most timid
politician may dismiss his alarms and resume his confidence. When the
East India Company, by conceding a regulated Export Trade, have at once
demonstrated the absurdity of all the predictions which foretold, in
that Trade, the overthrow of the Indian Empire; we may confidently
believe, that the Import Trade will prove as little destructive, and
that its danger will be altogether as chimerical as the former.

Whether the Court of Directors endeavour to fix that menacing character
upon the proposed Import Trade, as a bar against any further
requisition, is a question which will naturally occur to any
dispassionate person, who is not immediately and personally interested
in the conditions of the Charter; and he will be strongly inclined to
the affirmative in that question, when he finds, that the reason which
they have alleged for their resistance, is their apprehension of the
increased activity which the practice of smuggling would acquire, from
the free return of the out-port ships from India to their respective
ports. It is not a little extraordinary, that they should so strenuously
urge this argument against those persons, who, while they propose the
measure, are themselves responsible for the good management and
protection of the revenue; and who must therefore be supposed to feel
the necessity of providing means and regulations, adapted to the measure
which they propose. The Ministers of the Crown have not failed to inform
the Court of Directors, that, in consequence of the communications which
they have had with the Commissioners of the Customs and Excise upon the
subject, they find that the Directors have greatly over-rated the danger
which they profess to entertain; and they acquaint them, that new
regulations will be provided to meet the new occasion; and that the
out-port ships and cargoes will be subject to forfeiture upon the
discovery of any illicit articles on board. Yet the Court of Directors
still persist in declaring, that the hazard of _smuggling_ is _the
reason_ why they will not grant to the out-ports an import trade; and
this, through a fear of compromising "the safety of the British Empire
in India, and the British Constitution at home."

A calm and temperate observer, who scrupulously weighs the force and
merits of this reasoning, will naturally be forced into so much
scepticism as to doubt, whether there may not be some _other reasons_,
besides the safety of the Empire, which may induce the East India
Company to stand so firm for the condition of bringing all the import
Indian trade _into the Port of London_? Whether there may not be some
reasons, of a _narrower_ sphere than those of the interests of the
Empire? In searching for such reasons, it will occur to him, that the
Port of London is the seat of the Company's immediate and separate
interests; and he will shrewdly suspect, that those interests are the
_real_, while those of the Empire are made the _ostensible_, motive for
so vigorous a resistance. When he reflects, _that it is proposed to
leave the Company in the undisturbed possession of all the power of
Government over the Indian Empire, which they have hitherto enjoyed;
that they are to remain possessed, as heretofore, of the exclusive trade
to China, from whence four-fifths of their commercial profit is
derived_; that they themselves have virtually admitted the falsity of
the theoretical mischiefs, foretold as the certain results of an
out-port trade, by having agreed to concede that trade, to the extent
required by Government; that they equally allow, an import trade for the
merchants of the out-ports; but make their resistance upon the single
point, that the import trade should be all brought together into their
own warehouses, and should be disposed of in their own sales in
Leadenhall Street: when he combines all these considerations, he will
think that he plainly discovers, that the interests of the Empire at
large are not quite so much involved in the question as they proclaim;
and that, if any interests are more pressingly calculated than others,
it must be their own, and not the Public's. If their interests are to be
affected by the measure, let them fairly state it, and show the extent;
but let them not endeavour to defend them covertly, under an artful and
factious allegation of _the ruin of the British Constitution_. And if
they really do apprehend that the Constitution would be endangered, let
them not hazard such consequences by their own proceedings. Let them not
come forward as advocates for the preservation of the Empire, if their
rhetoric is to sink into a threat, of "_shutting up the great shop of
the India House."_

It may be well to call to the recollection of the East India Company,
that they owe their present state to an assertion of those very rights
to open trade which have now been brought forward; for, when the first,
or London East India Company had experienced certain disappointments and
failures, various adventurers came forward with claims similar to those
which have been alleged by the merchants of the present day, and
obtained an incorporation, to the prejudice of the old Company; and
although the old, or London East India Company, afterwards effected an
union with the new, or English East India Company, and with them gave
origin to the present Company, yet the UNITED EAST INDIA COMPANY should
not forget, how much the activity of the Indian trade was stimulated by
the assertion of the rights of their predecessors, _to participate in
the trade which had been granted exclusively to a former Company_.

GRACCHUS.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The _rights and pretensions_ of the Company are fully considered in
the Tenth Letter.

[2] Considerations on the Danger of laying open the Trade with India and
China, p. 13.

[3] Ibid. p. 18.




LETTER II.


_Wednesday, January 13, 1813._

It is a distinguishing character appertaining to Britons, to express
forcibly their feelings, whenever they think they discover any
disposition to encroach upon their rights. It is not therefore to be
wondered at, that the communication of the papers, on the subject of the
East India Company's Charter, which was made by the Directors to the
Proprietors, on the 5th instant, should have produced the effect which
was then manifested; of an almost unanimous disposition, to support the
Directors in their resistance of a measure, which, at the time, was
regarded as an invasion, on the part of the Government, of the
established rights of the East India Company.

But now that the momentary ebullition of that spirit has had time to
subside, and to give place to cool and sober reflection, it may not be
unacceptable to the Proprietors at large to look calmly and attentively
into the subject; and to examine its bearings on their own substantial
interests.

It must be manifest to every man, who will only refer to the accounts
which have been published in the Reports of the Select Committee of the
House of Commons, that, from the magnitude of the Company's debt, it
would be impossible to calculate the time at which the Proprietors could
contemplate any augmentation of their present dividends of 10½ per
cent.; even though the Charter, instead of being within one year of its
expiration, had an extended period of twenty years to operate.

It is equally manifest, from the correspondence of the Court of
Directors with Government, that, in agreeing to the proposition of
opening the Export Trade to the out-ports of the United Kingdom, they
were free from any apprehension, that the continuance of the present
dividend could be endangered by their conceding that point. And,
therefore, although the Proprietors were precluded from entertaining any
reasonable expectation of _an increase_ to their dividends, they were
perfectly warranted to consider the continuance of that which they now
receive, as free from any hazard, in consequence of the extension
proposed to be granted to the Export Trade.

Whether they may remain in the same confidence, under _all_ existing
circumstances, is a question which the Proprietors are now earnestly
solicited to examine. The point at issue (if I may apply that expression
to a case, in which the Company are upon the disadvantageous ground of
petitioning for the renewal of a privilege, now about to expire) is,
whether the ships which shall be permitted to clear out from the
out-ports of the United Kingdom, ought to be allowed to return to any
given description of those ports, or whether they should all be
compelled to enter at the Port of London? And upon _this point_ is made
to hinge a question, which may affect (not the _British Empire and
Constitution_, but) the main interest of the Proprietors, namely, _their
dividends_. For no man can be so inconsiderately sanguine as to suppose,
that the Company, under the present pressure of their pecuniary
embarrassments, (whatever may have been the causes from whence they have
arisen;) embarrassments proceeding from a debt, in India and in England,
of _more than forty-two millions_; nearly four millions of which are in
accepted bills on England, which will shortly become due, and for the
payment of which there are not funds at the India House; no man can be
so inconsiderately sanguine as to suppose, that the dividend may not
become a little precarious, under such circumstances. It must be evident
to the most superficial observer, that the credit of the Company with
the Public can only be sustained by the prompt and liberal aid of
Parliament; and it will hardly be maintained, that it is a _propitious_
mode of soliciting that aid, to connect with the solicitation an avowed
determination to oppose a measure, which Government represent it to be
their duty to recommend to Parliament, for the general benefit of the
community; a measure, founded on, and growing out of, the principle of
the Charter of 1793, which first opened the private trade between India
and this country; the provisions respecting which trade have been
progressively extended at subsequent periods, and of which trade the
Public will now call for a further enlargement and participation, as a
just and necessary qualification to the proposed renewal of the
Company's Charter.

The City of London, indeed, is _now_ an exception, and apparently a very
weighty one, to this general call; but it will lose much of that weight
with the Public, and must fall into the scale of an interested party,
when it is recollected, that so long as the question between the Company
and the Public was, whether the commerce with India should remain a
strict monopoly, or whether a participation in it should be granted to
individuals, under the restriction of importing to London the
commercial interest of the metropolis was powerfully incited against the
Company; and that, to that great commercial interest, supported by the
weight of Mr. Dundas's opinion, and to the more enlarged view which Lord
Wellesley took of the subject, the extension that has hitherto been
given to the private trade with India is to be attributed. The
experience of twelve years has now proved, that both India and the
parent state have greatly benefited by that extension; and it has
followed, as a necessary consequence of that experience, that the active
and intelligent merchants of the other large ports of the United
Kingdom, have urged their fair pretensions, to be admitted to a share in
the profits of that widely diffused trade; by sending their merchandise
from their own ports, and by receiving the returning cargoes into their
own warehouses, in those ports.

A reference to the printed papers (as has already been signified) will
show, that the Court of Directors were prevailed upon to concede _the
first_ of those points, but that they have been immoveable with respect
to _the second_; although their own commercial knowledge must have made
it evident to them, that the concession of the first, that is, _a free
export_, would be nugatory, unless supported by the benefit arising from
the _freedom of import_; which is not only in the proportion of four to
one in amount to the export, but is requisite to give that unity to the
concern, without which great commercial establishments cannot be kept
up.

Such is the state of the question, or, as it has been called, by some
strange perversion of ideas, the _negotiation_, between the Company, as
applicants for a renewal of their Charter which is about to expire, and
the Government, through whose aid it is to be solicited, or at least,
without whose concurrence it is certainly very questionable, whether
they would be able to obtain it. These are the circumstances, under
which the affairs of the East India Company must necessarily, and
speedily, be brought forward, for the consideration of Parliament. Can
it, then, be considered an exaggerated view of the hazards of such a
situation, to suppose, that some guardian of the public purse may deem
it requisite to inquire, whether the application for pecuniary aid from
Parliament ought not to be preceded by a substantial proof, not of
concession, for they have in fact nothing to concede, but of something
like accommodation on the part of the Proprietors? And in that event,
might it not be questioned, whether, since the dividend of 10 per cent.
was sanctioned upon an assumption, that the revenue of the Company
yielded a _surplus_ of upwards of a million; now, when instead of a
surplus, a _deficit_ is admitted to exist, the dividend ought not to be
reduced, not merely to the standard from which it had been raised under
the supposed prosperous state of the Company's affairs, but to a
standard to be regulated by the amount of the ascertained profits upon
their own trade, under whatever circumstances it may hereafter be
conducted?

It is not meant to insinuate, that any condition of the kind alluded to
is likely to be imposed, in granting the relief so pressingly required
by the present exigencies of the Company; but if a necessity for the
winding up of their affairs, as an exclusive Company, should arrive, and
if their own resources, with the profits they may derive from their
commerce as a Corporate Body, should not be adequate to the payment of a
dividend of 10½ per cent.; could it reasonably be expected, that
Parliament would, in _all future times_, extend its liberality towards
the Proprietors of India stock, to the extent of _securing to them_ a
continuance of their present dividend?

It is to be feared, that those who may have calculated upon such a
result, have taken a false measure of their _prospective situation_; and
it is on account of this apprehension, that it appears highly important
to call the attention of the Proprietors to the care of their own
substantial interest in the dividend; an interest, which to them is, and
must be paramount.

GRACCHUS.




LETTER III.


_Thursday, January 14, 1813._

It is at all times an object equally interesting and instructive, to
trace the origin of laws and institutions, and to follow them in the
progress of their operation; but this inquiry becomes more powerfully
attractive, when the pursuit is stimulated by an anxiety to defend a
supposed right, or to acquire an extension of advantages which are
already possessed.

Such an investigation appearing to be a necessary sequel of the subject
treated of in a former communication, let us now take a succinct view of
those provisions of the Act of 1793, by which the East India Company,
upon the last renewal of their Charter for a fixed time, were called
upon to relax from the exclusive restrictions of the monopoly which they
had so long enjoyed. Taking that Act as the source and origin from
whence the present India Question arises, let us briefly follow the
subject in its progress, down to the propositions that are now before
the Public.

It is necessary to premise, that the Company had, from an early period
of their commerce, granted as a favour and indulgence to the Captains
and Officers of their ships, permission to fill a regular portion of
tonnage with certain prescribed articles, upon their private account,
subject to the condition; that those privileged articles should be
lodged in the warehouses of the Company, that they should be exposed by
them at their sales, and that they should pay from 7 to 5 per cent. to
cover the charge of commission and merchandise.

The Act of 1793, relieved the trade carried on under this indulgence, by
reducing the rates of charge to 3 per cent.; which was established as
the rate, at which the more enlarged trade, for the first time allowed
by that Act to private merchants unconnected with the Company, should
pay to the Company; which trade was then limited to 3000 tons, the
shipping for which was to be provided by the Company, who were to be
paid freight for such tonnage, and were to have the same control over
the goods which might be imported, as they already exercised over the
trade of their Captains and Officers.

It was soon found, that the conditions, under which this trade was
opened, changed its operations, so as to render the privilege of little
value. The residents in India, for whose benefit it was professed to
have been principally intended, presented memorials upon the subject to
the Governments abroad; and the merchants of London represented to the
authorities in England, the necessity of an enlargement of the
principle, as well as a correction of the regulations. It is not
necessary, to go into any detail of the reasons upon which those
applications were supported; because Mr. Dundas, who then presided over
the affairs of India, and who had introduced and carried through
Parliament the Bill of 1793, did in the most explicit terms inform the
Court of Directors, in his letter of the 2d April, 1800, that "he should
be uncandid, if he did not fairly acknowledge, that experience had
proved it to be inadequate to the purposes for which it was
intended--and that therefore he was clear, that the clause in the Act
ought to be repealed, and in place thereof _a power be given to the
Governments abroad, to allow the British subjects, resident in India, to
bring home their funds to Britain on the shipping of the country_;" that
is to say, on ships built in India. This letter, of the President of the
Board of Control, was referred by the Court of Directors to a special
Committee of their body; who, in a very elaborate Report, dated 27th
Jan. 1801, that is to say, after the deliberation of eight months,
declared that it was impossible for them to acquiesce in the proposition
then made by Mr. Dundas. They supported their opposition by a variety of
arguments, from which the following short passage need alone be
selected:--"The proposals which have been brought forward by certain
descriptions of men, both in India and in England, for the admission of
their ships into the trade and navigation between India and Europe,
_proposals which extend to the establishment of a regular and systematic
privilege_ in favour of such ships, appear, when maturely weighed, and
followed into all their operations, _to involve principles and effects
dangerous to the interests both of the Company and of the nation_; that
_the adoption of those principles would, immediately and essentially,
affect both the system of policy which the Legislature has established
for maintaining the connexion and communication between this country and
British India, and the chartered privileges of the East India Company_.
And the introduction of any practice of this nature, would tend to widen
gradually, and indefinitely, the channel of intercourse between India
and Britain; to multiply the relations between the two countries; and to
pour Europeans of the lower sort into India, and Indian sailors into
this country; to lessen, by both these means, the respect for the
European character; _to disturb and shake our government there_; and, in
a word, to lead progressively but surely to colonization."

The language employed by the Court of Directors at the present day, in
opposition to the proposition for allowing private ships returning from
India to import to the places from whence they had sailed upon their
outward voyage, is feeble and languid; in comparison with the passage
which has been just now recited, from the Report of their Special
Committee, made upwards of twelve years ago, upon the proposition then
submitted by Mr. DUNDAS. That Minister, in his reply of the 21st March,
1801, to the Court of Directors, observed, "_I have reviewed my own
opinions with the most jealous attention, and I have weighed, with the
most anxious care, the arguments of those who suppose that the system
which I have recommended, is likely to produce any inconvenience or
danger to the rights, privileges, and exclusive interests of the East
India Company: but it is my misfortune to view the subject in an
opposite light. If any thing can endanger that Monopoly, it is_ AN
UNNECESSARY ADHERENCE TO POINTS NOT ESSENTIAL TO ITS EXISTENCE." Mr.
Dundas then adverted to a letter of the 30th September, recently
received from the Governor-General, Marquis Wellesley, which, he said,
"had with clearness and precision ably detailed and demonstrated the
grounds of those opinions."

But, the judgment and reasoning of Mr. Dundas, elucidated by the
arguments of Marquis Wellesley, (which were founded on the knowledge of
what, at the time, was passing under the eye of the Governor-General,)
had not influence upon the Court of Directors, sufficient to make them
adopt the proposition of the President of the Board of Control; and
still less, the enlargement of that proposition, as suggested by Lord
Wellesley; who represented, "the great advantages that would result to
the Sovereign State, by encouraging the shipping and exportation of
India; and, that if the capital of the Merchants in India, should not
supply funds sufficient for the conduct of the whole private Export
Trade from India to Europe, no dangerous consequences could result from
applying, to this branch of commerce, capital drawn directly from the
British Empire in Europe:" thereby taking that trade from foreign
nations, whose participation in it was become "_alarmingly increasing_."

These distinct and concurring opinions, of the President of the Board of
Control and the Governor-General, could not prevail upon the Court of
Directors to "alter the opinion they had delivered." They accordingly
drew up paragraphs, to be sent to the Governments in India, conveying
their _final resolutions and instructions_.--"The British residents in
India," they said, "aided by those who take up their cause here (_viz._
the King's Ministers and the Merchants of London), desire to send their
own ships to Britain, with private merchandise; and the principle of
employing British capital in this trade, is also contended for. This
trade, although it might for a time be carried on through the existing
forms of the Company, would at length supersede them; the British
commerce with India, instead of being, as it is now, _a regulated
monopoly_, would deserve, more properly, the character of a regulated
free trade; a title, which it is to be feared would not suit it long."

Such is the substance of the paragraphs which the Directors had
prepared, upon the propositions we have been considering; although both
the one and the other of those propositions explicitly provided, _that
all the private trade with India, export as well as import, should be
confined to the Port of London_. The Board of Control, though no longer
presided at by Mr. Dundas, interposed its authority; and, on the 2d
June, 1801, the Directors were enjoined not to send those paragraphs to
India.

The language of the Court of Directors in 1813, upon the question of the
Import Trade, is, as has been already affirmed, feeble and languid in
comparison with that which the same body employed in 1800 and 1801, with
regard to the admission of India-built ships in the carrying trade
between Britain and India; but Indian-built ships have, from that time
to the present, been employed in that trade, and none of the alarming
consequences, which the Directors had predicted, have resulted from that
practice.

May it not therefore be reasonably assumed, that the alarm under which
they now profess themselves to be, would prove to be equally unfounded;
that the direful influence upon the Constitution and Empire, which the
Directors tell us is to be apprehended, from any change in the existing
system that shall admit private ships returning from India to import at
the places whence they had cleared out, would be found to be as little
entitled to serious consideration; and that neither the public revenue,
nor the immediate interests of the Company, would be endangered by an
experiment, which the Government and the Company would be equally bound
to watch; and which Parliament could at all times control, and if
necessary, absolutely bring to a termination?

GRACCHUS.




LETTER IV.


_Saturday, Jan. 16, 1813._

Having hitherto taken a view of those parts of the India Question, which
more immediately relate, to the commercial interests of this country,
and to the Proprietors of East India Stock; let us now advert to the
deportment of the Directors towards the Ministers of the Crown, in their
last communication made to the Court of Proprietors.

It appears, from the printed papers, that as long back as the month of
April, the President of the Board of Control put the Court of Directors
in full possession of the _final opinion_ of His Majesty's Ministers;
concerning the privileges of trade which, they conceived, it would be
their duty to submit to Parliament, as the basis of a Charter. Early in
the month of December, a deputation from the Court of Directors appears
to have been admitted, by special appointment, to a conference; in which
it is known to every clerk and messenger about the offices, as well as
to every member of that deputation, that the three Secretaries of State,
the First Lord of the Treasury, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
attended. And it is equally notorious, that two subsequent meetings were
held, between the same parties. We are warranted to infer, from the
letter of Lord Buckinghamshire, that the discussions which took place at
those several conferences, were declared to be open and unreserved; with
a view that the Members of Government, and the Members of the
Deputation, might freely, and without restraint of form, deliver their
reasons for the opinions which they respectively held.

The impression which the Court of Directors received, from the conduct
of the Ministers of the Crown, in those conferences, is manifested in
the Letter from the Chairman and Deputy Chairman to the President of the
Board of Control, of the 30th December, in which "they return sincere
acknowledgments for the attention with which their representations had
been listened to, in the various interviews with which they had been
honoured by his Lordship, and His Majesty's Ministers, who attended."

In conferences of this nature, and between parties thus relatively
circumstanced, all that was to be expected from the Ministers of the
Crown was, that they should listen with attention to the representations
made to them, and should reply to those representations, so as to
command the acknowledgment of the inferior party. If, in the issue, (to
use the words of Mr. Dundas to the same authorities in 1801,) "after
having reviewed their opinions with the most jealous attention, and
after having weighed, with the most anxious care, the arguments brought
forward, it was still their misfortune to view the subject in an
opposite light" to that which presented itself to the judgment of the
Directors; it was not to be expected, that they should surrender their
own judgment to that of the Directors, who stood in the anomalous
character of defendants and judges in their own cause.

At the time that these conferences were terminated, the Ministers appear
to have entertained an expectation, that the subject would not be
further agitated, until an official communication should be made upon it
from Government. The Court of Directors, however, met on the 18th
December, and entered something very like a protest, by anticipation,
against the measure, which they knew, (from what appears to have passed
at the conferences,) would be the subject of that official
communication; and they transmitted it to the India Board. By the
irregularity of this proceeding; which bore upon the face of it the
appearance of a design, either of intimidating Government from coming to
the final decision which they had signified, or of creating a bar
against future discussion; they precluded Government from going into any
detail of argument, and consequently, the reply of the President of the
Board of Control appears to have been principally intended, to convey
officially to the Court of Directors that result, which the Members of
the Deputation were already in possession of; namely, "those conditions,
upon which alone, consistently with their public duty, the King's
Servants could submit a proposition to Parliament for the renewal of the
Charter."

To this official communication, the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the
East India Company sent a reply, wherein they offer some explanation of
the irregularity; but, in their opposition to the ultimate determination
of Government, they call upon the King's confidential servants, to
impart to them all the reasons which had determined them to think, that
"the privilege of Eastern commerce should be extended to British
merchants;" and also, the specific regulations which they may propose to
adopt, for giving additional security to the revenue against smuggling.

The President of the Board of Control, thus called upon to step out of
his sphere, or to admit the Court of Directors to _Cabinet discussions_,
was constrained to acquaint them, that "the duty of Ministers had been
performed, by communicating to the Company the conditions on which they
were disposed to submit the business to Parliament;" at the same time
informing them, that they would find most of the reasons, which had
determined the judgment of Ministers to yield to the representations of
the out-port merchants, stated "in the petitions presented by those
merchants to the Houses of Parliament." And he finally referred them,
with confidence, to the "justice and wisdom of Parliament, for obtaining
a due regard to their interests."

If the Court of Directors did not entertain feelings and views very
different from those of the community at large, in consequence of that
peculiar position which renders them _defendants, and judges, in their
own cause_, they could not fail to contemplate with applause, the
temper, patience, and regard to public engagements, which mark the whole
proceedings of Government on this arduous occasion. But, being at one
and the same moment, petitioners and arbitrators, and having their
judgments biassed under those clashing characters, they have not always
kept themselves within the capacity, in which alone they can
consistently treat with the Government of the country. In their
communications with the Servants of the Crown, respecting the renewal of
their Charter, all that they are authorized to pretend to, is to have a
distinct knowledge of the conditions, on which the Government think they
shall be justified in the sight of the country, in proposing to
Parliament the renewal of their Charter; and, in the course of obtaining
this information, they have experienced the utmost consideration, and
have received the most ample and unreserved communications from His
Majesty's confidential servants; who have given their attention to every
argument urged by those who appeared as representatives of the Court of
Directors, and have put them in possession of all the grounds upon which
they differ from them in opinion. After having done this, they have
discharged their highly responsible duty to the Public; and if "_they
have the misfortune to view the subject in an opposite light_," the
Company's records will show them, that this is not the first time a
radical difference of opinion had subsisted, concerning their
pretensions, between the King's Ministers and the Court of Directors.

Such being the true state of the case, it becomes a subject of grave
inquiry, why the Directors, in the Court of Proprietors held at the
India House on the 5th instant, took no step whatever for moderating the
spirit which was then shown; or for rectifying the false impressions
which were there testified, respecting the deportment of His Majesty's
Ministers. It does not appear, that any one of the Directors who were
parties in those various conferences, in which they acknowledge to the
President of the Board of Control that they experienced so much
attention, took any forward step to set right the misrepresentations
which were delivered; or to repel the charges, implied or declared, of
contempt, neglect, encroachment, &c. which were so freely imputed to the
Servants of the Crown. But they left the spirit which had improperly
been excited, to act by the impulse of an erroneous impression; omitting
to render to the Government that justice, which the frankness of their
proceedings strongly called for.

A review of the debate at the India House,--with the Directors, either
silently withholding what they were enabled to impart in justification
of the Government, or by the rhetoric of some of them tending to blow
wider the flames of discord,--would almost authorize a suspicion, that
the Directors were not displeased at the fever which their silence
nourished. It is therefore earnestly to be hoped, for the honour of the
East India Company, and more especially for the interest of the
Proprietors, that some Director, or other individual, may, at the next
General Court, strive to efface the memory of the last; who may call
upon the Deputation, to render to the Ministers of the Crown whatever
justice is due to them, for their conduct in the late discussions; and
who may recommend a revision of the statement, in which they represent
to those Ministers, that the terms on which Government have offered to
the Company a Charter, are such as may "_leave their dividend unprovided
for_," and "_create a necessity for their going to Parliament_!" For,
unless they have brought themselves to a state to suppose, that
Ministers and the Public have lost all intelligence, they must know,
that both Ministers and the Public are well aware, that they are
actually under _a necessity of going to Parliament_ for aid, as soon as
Parliament shall be assembled; and that, at the present moment, _their
dividend_ may, in strictness, be considered as _unprovided for_.

GRACCHUS.




LETTER V.


_Tuesday, January 19, 1813._

The writers, who have recently undertaken to defend and justify the
opposition of the Court of Directors to any extension of the Import
Trade from India to the out-ports of the kingdom, have laid a peculiar
stress upon an opinion conveyed in that part of Mr. Dundas's Letter of
the 2d of April 1800, in which that Minister was considering "the
_agents_ to be employed at home; to manage the private trade of
individuals from India, and to take care of their interests in the
cargoes of the returning ships." He states his opinion, that "there is
no use of any interference by the Company; that the great interest to be
attended to on _the part of the Company_, is, that no goods come from
India that are not deposited in the Company's warehouses; and that the
goods, so imported, be exposed at the Company's sales, agreeably to the
rules prescribed for that purpose."

In taking ground upon any principle, it is necessary to ascertain
whether it applies to the case in point. That it was a great interest to
the East India Company to watch and control the trade carrying on under
their own licenses, is obvious; and this the Company could not
effectually do, unless that Trade, on its return from India, was brought
under their own eye, and collected within the sphere of their own
control; which is confined to the Port of London. But the case, to which
this argument is now applied by the advocates for the Company, is so
essentially deficient, that the principles appear to be wholly
inapplicable. In this _new case_, the extended trade would be carried
on, not under _the Company's licenses_, but under _the provision of
Parliament_; and the protection and control of that trade would become
the care, not of the Company, but of the executive Government. Here then
the determination of that trade would be governed, not by the separate
interest of the Company (which alone came within the scope of Mr.
Dundas's argument), but by the combined interests of the Company and the
Public at large. To this _combined interest_, Mr. Dundas's argument was
_not_ directed; and it is a fallacy in reasoning, to apply a partial
argument to a general case.

But, let us grant what these advocates assume; that the opinion here
delivered by Mr. Dundas, does really apply to the case in question. May
not that have happened at the present day, which actually did happen
with regard to the regulations of the Charter of 1793? Might not new
light be thrown upon a subject in 1813, which was supposed to have been
thoroughly investigated in 1800? And, as the candour and openness of Mr.
Dundas caused him, in 1800, to avow, that the provisions of 1793 were
_inadequate_, and prompted him strenuously to recommend the adoption of
a _new principle_; is it not possible that, taking into his view all the
circumstances which bear upon the question at the present day, he might,
had his life been spared, have been convinced, that the extraordinary
and unforeseen changes which have taken place in the political and
commercial world, might have now rendered it, not only expedient but,
necessary to relax, in some degree, upon the point of the import trade
from India?

At an early period of the present discussion, Ministers appear to have
entertained the same maxim, of confining the import trade from India to
the Port of London. They were afterwards led, by a full exposition of
all the various interests which remonstrated against that close
restriction, to deem it just and expedient to propose (and wise and
politic for the East India Company to consent), that _such of the
principal out-ports as possessed the means whereby smuggling could best
be guarded against_, should participate with London in the import trade
from India; reserving exclusively to London, the whole of the trade
from China. This alteration of their original plan was suggested by
them to the Court of Directors, not as a relaxation of the _existing
privileges_ of the Company (which was the nature of Mr. Dundas's
proposition in 1800), but as a qualification to take place under _a new
Charter_.

When Mr. Dundas suggested to the Directors the new principle, of
admitting Indian-built ships as the vehicle for carrying on the private
trade, he was not treating with them concerning _the renewal_ of their
Charter; for they had then an _unexpired term of fourteen years_, in the
privileges conferred upon them by the Act of 1793. His proposition, as
has been just observed, went to _a relaxation_ of an important part of
those _subsisting privileges_; for which he sought to gain their
acquiescence; and as his opinion was decided and avowed, "that the
ostensible form of Government for India, with all its consequent detail
of patronage, must remain as it now is, and that the monopoly of that
trade ought properly to continue in the hands of the East India
Company;" it was prudent and seasonable in him to dwell upon that point.

Have not the Ministers of the present day evinced the same opinion? Have
they not proposed, to leave the patronage of India, and the exclusive
profits of the China Trade, with the Company? Does not the China Trade
ensure the employment of all the large ships in the service of the
Company; together with the continued engagement, in that line of
service, of the Commanders and Officers of those ships; and also, of
every other description of person now connected with that (_the
largest_) branch of the Company's concerns? Have not Ministers proposed
to confine the private trade with India to ships of four hundred tons
and upwards; thereby leaving to the owners of such of the smaller ships
now in the service of the Company, as by possibility may not be required
for their commerce, the advantage (which establishment in any line of
business must always give) of finding employment from those who, under
the proposed extension, may engage in that trade? Have not Ministers, in
proposing that the _Government_ of India should continue to be
administered through the organ of the Company, proposed to them the
continuance of the peculiar and great benefit, of carrying on their
_commerce_ by means of _the revenue_ of that Government? Whereas, the
private adventurers must trade upon their own capitals, or at an heavy
charge of interest.

How is it, then, that we hear so much of the loss which our Navy must
sustain, from the large ships of the Company being withdrawn from the
Eastern Trade; of the distress to which the Commanders and Officers, and
the numerous classes of artificers and others connected with those
ships, are to be exposed? Why are we told, that the East India Docks
will be left empty, and the Proprietors be reduced to apply to
Parliament for an indemnification? Can it possibly happen, that all
these calamities, so heavily denounced, should arise out of a permission
to be granted to private ships, returning from India, to proceed to
_certain ports to be designated_; more advantageously situated for their
trade than the Port of London? A permission, which the Directors
themselves are of opinion will not long be made use of to any great
extent; for they have told us, that the adventurers in those private
ships will be disappointed in their speculations; and they have adverted
to the mass of individual loss, which must ensue from the delusion, as
furnishing a strong argument, why Government ought not to yield to the
importunity of the Merchants of the out-ports.

From all that has been stated, it would appear, that instead of the
exaggerated picture of distress, which the advocates for a close
monopoly to the Port of London have represented as the necessary
consequence of relieving commerce from its present restrictions, we
ought to entertain a well-founded expectation; that _every class and
description of persons_, who now find employment in the Indian Trade,
will continue to have their industry called into action in the same line
of employment, and even to a greater extent, in some instances, than is
now experienced. For, unless the _union of interests_, which has so
recently taken place between the City of London and the East India
Company, should have the effect of preventing all competition between
the Merchants of London (formerly so eager to participate in the trade
with India), and the Merchants of the out-ports; it cannot fail to
happen, from the spirit of enterprise which has uniformly distinguished
the Metropolis, that the Port of London, _to which the whole India Trade
would be generally open_, will furnish its full proportion of the new
adventurers; and thus amply fill up that void, which the East India
Company affirm would be created in the Port of London, by diverting so
much of the Indian Trade to the out-ports: more especially, as all the
houses of Indian agency, which have been formed since the Act of 1793,
are established within the Metropolis.

Since this is the just prospect, which the adoption of the conditions
proposed by Government as the terms for the renewal of the Company's
Charter, opens to our view; since the share which the London Merchants
may take in the enlargement of the trade, would not fail to supply
employment for all that industry, which the Court of Directors assert
will be interrupted and suspended; while, at the same time, the
extension of that advantage will create new sources of industry in
various parts of the kingdom, without impairing or diminishing that of
London; whose will be the awful responsibility, if, by an obstinate
rejection of terms capable of yielding consequences so extensively
beneficial to the community, the Charter of the Company should not be
renewed; and if the disastrous effect should in consequence be produced,
in London and its vicinity, of "a suspended industry, interrupted
employment," and all the train of sufferings and calamities which has
been drawn out? Who will be chargeable, before the country, with "the
loss and waste of establishments which have cost upwards of a million
sterling--of shipping, to the amount of many millions--of a numerous and
respectable class of warehouse-keepers, clerks, and superior servants,
joined to three thousand labourers, and their families--of tradesmen of
various descriptions, who have incurred a very great expense for the
conduct of their business?" Who will be chargeable, in fact, with all
this destruction? Will it be the Government, who desire the East India
Company _to keep their Indian Empire, and their exclusive China trade_?
Or will it be the Conductors of the East India Company, who shall suffer
this great machine suddenly to stop its action, _because their limited
exclusive privileges are not made perpetual_?

GRACCHUS.




LETTER VI.


_Friday, January 22, 1813._

Gracchus is charged, by some of the champions of the East India Company,
with error and a want of candour, because he has represented the
Directors to have maintained, that opening the import trade from India
to the out-ports of the kingdom, involves a question of the last
importance to the British Empire in India, and to the British
Constitution at home; and those writers affirm, that the Directors do
not deduce the danger of those great interests from the question of the
out-port trade, but from the question of disturbing the present system
of administering the Government of India.

Yet he can discover, neither error nor want of candour in his statement.
If those advocates will take the pains to follow the whole argument of
the Directors, on the present occasion, throughout, they must be
sensible, that his statement cannot be controverted. The Directors,
indeed, avoid expressing their proposition in the fair and distinct form
in which it is here drawn out; yet such is the proposition in effect.
For, if the whole of it be reduced into a form of syllogism, it is no
other than this:--


     "Whatever shall cause the subversion of the present system of
     Indian Government, will cause danger to the Empire and
     Constitution.

     "But, pressing the extension of _an import trade from India to the
     out-ports_, will cause the subversion of the present system of
     Indian Government.

     "Therefore, _pressing the extension of an import trade to the
     out-ports, will cause danger to the Empire and Constitution_."


If we question the _minor_ proposition, and ask, Why, pressing an import
trade for the out-ports, should necessarily cause the subversion of the
existing system of Indian Government? the answer of the Directors is
already given:--Because they _will not_ continue to carry on that
Government, if an import trade from India should be granted to the
out-ports. Thus, the original statement is demonstrably established; and
all the logic of the City cannot overturn it.

The Directors must permit the words "_will not_;" for, with the record
of the East India Company's history before us, it is impossible to say
they _cannot_. In proof of this assertion, let us take a review of that
history, and let us examine, what evil resulted to the Company, _during
the period that the import trade from India_ WAS ACTUALLY _extended to
the out-ports of Great Britain_.

When the first, or London East India Company, had incurred the
forfeiture of their Charter in 1693, by the non-payment of a stipulated
sum of money, their privileges were immediately restored to them, and
confirmed by letters patent, granted by King William III. upon this
express ground:--"Considering how highly it imports the honour and
welfare of this our kingdom, and our subjects thereof, that a trade and
traffic to the East Indies should be continued; and being well satisfied
that the same may be of great and public advantage; and being also
desirous to render the same, as much as in us lies, _more national,
general, and extensive, than hitherto it hath been_," &c.

This principle, of promoting a more national, general, and extensive
trade to India than had subsisted under the then existing Company's
exclusive Charter, gave rise to _a new measure_ in the year 1698, in an
Act passed in the 9th and 10th year of the same king, entitled, _An Act
for raising a sum not exceeding two millions, &c. and for settling the
trade to the East Indies_. The parties subscribing towards that loan,
were formed into a Society, called _The General Society of Merchants,
&c._; and such of them as chose to unite their subscriptions, and to
form a joint-stock, were incorporated under the name of _The English
East India Company, &c._ The General Society possessed the privilege of
an export and import trade with India, with the power of _bringing their
import cargoes from India to the_ OUT-PORTS _of the kingdom_, in the
same manner as is proposed by Government at the present day; with this
only difference, that the General Society of Merchants were not
restricted as to the ports at which they should enter, whereas
Government have _now_ proposed, that merchants _should be restricted to
such ports as can best afford the means of guarding against the
depredations of smuggling_.

The regulations, which were adopted for ships importing from India to
the out-ports, are to be found in the Act 9 and 10 William III. c. 44.
s. 69. and were as follows:--


     "Provided always, and it is here enacted, that no Company, or
     _particular person or persons_, who shall have a right, in
     pursuance of this Act, to trade to the East Indies, or other parts
     within the limits aforesaid, shall be allowed to trade, until
     _sufficient security_ shall be first given (which the Commissioners
     of the Customs in England, or any three or more of them for the
     time being, are hereby authorized and required to take, in the
     name and to the use of His Majesty, his heirs and successors), that
     such Company, or _particular persons_, shall cause all the goods,
     wares, merchandise, and commodities, which shall at any time or
     times hereafter, during the continuance of this Act, be laden by or
     for them, or _any of them_, or for their, or any of their accounts,
     in _any ship_ or ships whatsoever, bound from the said East Indies,
     or parts within the limits aforesaid, to be brought (without
     breaking bulk), to _some port of England or Wales_, and _there be
     unladen and put to land_, &c. And that all goods and merchandises
     belonging to the Company aforesaid, or _any other traders to the
     East Indies_, and which shall be _imported into England or Wales_,
     as aforesaid, pursuant to this Act, shall by them be sold openly
     and publicly, by inch of candle, _upon their respective accounts_,
     and not otherwise."


Upon this Act of the 9th and 10th of William III. was built, in the
following year, that famous Charter of the Company, upon which they rest
the weight of their pretensions; and that very Charter, as is here
rendered incontestable by the Act itself, comprehended the principle,
_of an Import Trade from India to the_ OUT-PORTS _of the kingdom_.

The form and condition of the security which was to be given by the
out-port merchants, will be found in the Act, 6th Anne, c. 3. entitled,
"_An Act for better securing the duties on East India goods_." By that
Act, the security to be given was fixed "at the rate of 2500l. sterling
for every hundred ton their ships or vessels shall be respectively let
for;" and the _only_ restriction imposed upon the import trade from
India was, that it should be brought "_to some port in Great Britain_."

Thus, then, any man who looks but a little beyond the objects which lie
accidentally before his eyes, may see, that the measure now suggested by
Government, instead of being a wild and airy speculation, a theoretical
innovation, a _new_, untried, and dangerous experiment, on which we have
no ground to reason from experience (as it has been ignorantly and
falsely asserted), is nothing more than reverting to an _ancient_
principle, involved in the Company's applauded Charter of the 10th of
William the Third, and to the practice of our forefathers in the
brightest period of our domestic history; a period, in which the British
Constitution received its last perfection, and from which the present
power and greatness of the British Empire, in the East and in the West,
dates its origin.

Having sufficiently proved and established this _great fact_, let us
next inquire, what history reveals to us, of _the consequences_ of that
import trade to the out-ports, that can tend, in any degree, to justify,
or give support to, the Company, in determining to resort to an
alternative which, they acknowledge, will subvert the system of Indian
Government (and thereby shake the Constitution at home), rather than
_renew the measure_ of a regulated trade to the out-ports.

We have not to deduce these consequences from _abstract hypothesis_, but
from _historical testimony_; let us, then, observe what that testimony
unfolds. No evil, of any kind whatever, resulted to the incorporated, or
Joint Stock Company, from the privilege enjoyed by the out ports. On the
contrary, that _Joint Stock Company_, issuing out of the General Society
of Merchants (which, as has been above stated, soon became the English
East India Company), rose above all their competitors, notwithstanding
the power of importing, without limitation, to _any of the ports of the
kingdom_; and such was the rapidity of their progress, that they
overcame the former, or London Company; they obtained a surrender of all
their rights to St. Helena, Bombay, and all their other islands and
settlements in India; they at length received that ancient Company into
their own body; and finally became the United East India Company of the
present day. And so little did the competition and free import of the
general merchants tend to obstruct the growth of the United Company,
even in the age of its _infancy_; and so "superior were the advantages
they derived from trading with a joint-stock (to use the words of one of
the Company's most strenuous champions), that at the time of the union
of the two Companies, out of the whole loan of two millions, only
7000l. then remained the property of the _separate traders of the
General Society_; and this sum also was soon absorbed in the United
Company[4]." If then the Company, starting originally with only a joint
stock, against a competition in the out-ports of the kingdom, with a
power to import to those out-ports, outstripped and overcame all their
competitors; what can they seriously apprehend from a renewal of the
same experiment, in the present momentum of their power, and when they
are able to unite with their joint-stock, the whole of the revenues of
their present empire in the East?

But it may be asked, if no better success is likely to attend the
commercial speculations of the out-ports, why is so strong an effort
made, to admit them to a share in the India trade? The answer is
obvious. When Mr. Dundas, in the year 1800, so forcibly expressed his
opinion against any such admission, he did not ground that opinion upon
a question of _ports_, but of _commercial capital_. He considered the
capital of the Company as sufficient for all the advantage which the
Public, in the aggregate, could derive from the India Trade; and he
maintained, that the aggregate interest of the Public would suffer from
any measure, tending "to divert any larger proportion of the commercial
capital of the country from a more advantageous and more profitable
use." But the circumstances of the world are become materially altered,
since the period of 1800. The commercial capital, of which Mr. Dundas
then reasoned, is deprived of that advantageous and profitable
employment which his argument supposed, and is therefore without
application or direction; from whence it has resulted, that the
operation of commerce is interrupted, and its activity suspended. The
allowing that capital to be partially directed to the markets of India,
would therefore, under present circumstances, have the great national
advantage, of recovering the activity and spirit of commerce, and of
encouraging an extensive public interest which is at present
disappointed, if not dormant; and, whenever a more prosperous state of
things should return, the capital so engaged for a time, would, from the
nature of commerce, unquestionably recall itself, and seek again a more
profitable market, if any such should open. In the mean time, the East
India Company, adding to their joint-stock all the revenues of India,
need hardly know, because they could not _feel_, that they had any
competitors in the markets of India. And, as the Executive Government
was able to guard the out-ports against smuggling in the period of _the
infancy_ of the Company, they might and ought to feel a perfect
confidence, that the same authority can guard them equally now, in the
present period of _their maturity_.

Thus, since history renders it indisputable, that an import trade from
India to the out-ports of the kingdom has been heretofore exercised
under Acts of Parliament, and that it may be perfectly compatible with
the highest prosperity of the East India Company; since the Executive
Government can guard it against smuggling at the present day, as well as
in the reigns of King William and Queen Anne; and since a great and
urgent national interest reasonably demands it, both from Parliament and
the Company; the present moment furnishes a most fit occasion for the
Company to consider, Mr. Dundas's solemn call upon "their wisdom,
policy, and liberality," made by him to them in the year 1800; and also,
his weighty admonition, that "_if any thing can endanger their monopoly,
it is_ AN UNNECESSARY ADHERENCE TO POINTS NOT ESSENTIAL TO THEIR
EXISTENCE."

It has been called _illiberal_, to question the motives of the
Directors, in refusing their consent to an import trade to the
out-ports. But, with the facts of history, which have been here
produced, staring us and them in the face, it would be impossible not to
question those motives. No man can entertain a higher respect for the
East India Company, as a body politic and corporate, or contemplate with
higher admiration the distinguished career which it has run, than
Gracchus; but, at the same time, no one is better persuaded of the
operation of _policy_, in a body circumstanced as they are. And it is
more especially necessary to watch that policy, and to be free to
interpret _political motives_, at the present crisis, because, at the
eve of the expiration of the Company's _last_ Charter, in 1793, certain
rights were anxiously alleged on their behalf, in a work entitled, "_A
Short History of the East India Company_, &c." rights absolutely
unmaintainable, and utterly incompatible with the sovereignty of the
Empire, and the freedom of the Constitution; and the allegations then
made, appear now to assume the form of _a practical assertion_. To those
alleged rights, therefore, it will be advisable early to call the
attention of Parliament and of the nation.

GRACCHUS.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] A Short History of the East India Company.




LETTER VII.


_Wednesday, Jan. 27, 1813._

There is an irritability manifested at the present moment, by those who
are intimately united in interest with the East India Company, which
appears strongly indicative of an unhealthy case. It is well known, that
the revenues of the Company, far from being able to contribute to the
revenues of the State that augmentation which was made the condition of
the Company's present Charter, have, from causes which the Directors
could not control, been so deficient, that they have been obliged, at
different times, to apply to Parliament for pecuniary aid; that they are
burdened with a debt of not less than forty-two millions; and that they
are _now_ unable to discharge their engagements, without again coming to
Parliament to obtain the means. Yet, "AN OLD PROPRIETOR" feels no
uneasiness from this state of the Company's affairs; and this, we must
suppose, proceeds from an opinion, that the dividend he now receives is
_secured to him for the time to come_.

But Parliament has never, directly nor indirectly, made itself a
_collateral security_ to the Proprietors, for the payment of a dividend
of 10½ percent. The aids, at different times granted by Parliament,
have proceeded from a mixed principle, of _equity_ and of _liberal
support_. Of _equity_, in so far as the embarrassments of the Company
have been occasioned by political events; of _liberal support_, in so
far as those embarrassments may have been caused by disappointment in
trade. If the Proprietors should not discriminate between these two
principles which have actuated Parliament, but claim the whole of the
succours afforded, upon a ground of _positive right_, they might impose
upon Parliament the necessity of requiring the East India Company to
bring their affairs to a final settlement; in order that it may be
accurately determined, how far the Public are equitably pledged to the
Proprietors, and how far the Proprietors must be left to settle their
own accounts with the Company alone. And it is possible, that the result
might not afford that confidence of a well-secured dividend of ten and a
half per cent., which an OLD PROPRIETOR considers it an attack upon
private property even to question.

Such an issue, however, does not appear to be very likely to occur,
unless the Managers of the East India Company's concerns, from any
ill-advised determination in their counsels, should take some steps, by
which their affairs should be abruptly brought to a settlement: in which
event, any disappointment or loss sustained by the Proprietors will be
chargeable upon those Managers, who thus desert their duty to their
Constituents; and not on the Public, or the Government. The Managers of
the East India Company, having so clear and responsible a duty binding
upon them, ought to be most scrupulous of failing in that duty, through
any capricious or speculative "_adherence to points not essential to
their existence_;" for, if they should sacrifice the interest of the
Proprietors by now attempting to convert their _temporary grants_ into a
_perpetual right_; although the disappointed Proprietors may arraign the
Public, yet the Public at large will, with justice, impeach the Managers
of the East India Company.

In order to open the eyes of the Proprietors to the simple fact of their
actual position, their attention was called by Gracchus, on the 13th
inst. to the consideration, whether the Company, loaded with a debt of
42,000,000l. and being unable to discharge the sum of four millions
becoming due, could reasonably expect, that if Parliament should now
come to their immediate relief, it would engage itself, _in all future
time_, for the payment of a dividend of ten and a half per cent.;
especially, if, upon any contingent winding up of the Company's affairs,
called for by their own pertinacity, their remaining resources should be
found inadequate to secure that dividend to the Proprietors? And the
possible case was suggested, of some guardian of the public purse
deeming it equitable, that in the event of Parliament being disposed to
come to the relief of the Proprietors, under such circumstances, the
latter should be called upon, on their part, to submit to some condition
of accommodation.

"An OLD PROPRIETOR" discovers in this argument of caution, only _a
direct menace_ from the Executive Government to the purses of the
Proprietors;--a plain and intelligible _threat_, that payment of their
just claims shall be withheld; and he "thanks God, that he lives in a
country, where such language will be treated with merited scorn." This
OLD PROPRIETOR should have known, that Government has never declined to
settle any accounts with the East India Company, which had been properly
authenticated: under present circumstances, it is not to be expected,
that Government should incur the responsibility of applying the public
money to discharge claims which have not been sufficiently investigated.
So far, however, is Government from having evinced any disposition to
throw unnecessary difficulties in the way of the Company's pecuniary
arrangements, that, in the midst of the present contest with the
Directors, it has granted to the Company a suspension of the payment of
between 8 and 900,000l. of tea duties, which the Company had actually
received from the buyers of the tea. It is perhaps not generally known,
that the Company formerly paid the duties upon tea upon its being
imported and landed; by which means the amount of duties was immediately
drawn into the Exchequer. To accommodate the Company, a change of
practice was allowed by Government, and the Company have been permitted
to sell their teas, in the first instance, without the interference of
the Officers of the Customs, upon condition of the Company afterwards
remitting the gross amount of duties to the Board of Revenue. Thus they
actually make their own profits upon the tea, and receive into their own
hands the Government duties, before they are called upon to pay them.
The duties actually so received by the Company, amount to the sum above
stated; and the _Old Proprietor_ will probably deem it no slight proof
of a wish on the part of Government to render an accommodation to the
Company, that, during the pending discussion, it has made arrangements
for allowing the Company an extended period, for transferring the very
considerable sum of which they have actually received the beneficial
use.

It should be always remembered, by the Company, and by the Public, as
parties in a great compact, that the privilege of an exclusive trade to
India and China has never been granted to the Company without reserve;
or, as if their possession of that exclusive benefit was, _in itself_,
the most advantageous arrangement for the public interest. The grant has
always proceeded upon a principle, of bargain and covenant; and on the
consideration of a pecuniary, advance, to be made by the Company to the
Public, as the condition for the renewal of _the lease of the public
rights in the India trade_. Upon this principle alone, has the exclusive
trade ever been conceded to the East India Company; either under its
present form, or under any of its former denominations.

To shorten the discussion, however, let the Proprietors and the Company
take the following compressed view, of the probable consequences which
would severally result, from a _compliance with_, or _rejection of_, the
proposition made by Government, as the basis of a new Charter; and let
them consider, in _which of the two_ they foresee the greatest security
for their own future interests.

If, upon maturely weighing the case before them, the Company should
accede to the proposition of Government; and if an arrangement, founded
upon that proposition, should receive the sanction of Parliament;

1. The Company will preserve _the entire China trade_; and this
principal sphere of their commercial profit, will remain undisturbed.

2. They will possess advantages for continuing to carry on the India
trade, so far superior to those of all private competitors, from _their
territorial and commercial revenues_, that, with a moderate exertion of
their activity, they may preserve almost the whole of that trade.

3. They will possess _the regulation and control of the India trade_, so
far as depends upon the Indian Governments; and as those Governments
will continue in the exercise of the executive power, all the private
Merchants, who may repair to the ports and harbours within the extensive
limits of their jurisdiction, will of course _be subject to the
authority of their Government_.

4. They will retain the whole patronage and expenditure of a revenue of
upwards of _Fifteen Millions_ sterling per annum in India, together with
very extensive establishments at home, depending upon that revenue.

5. The accounts between the Public and the Company, being brought to no
sudden and violent crisis of settlement, may be amicably and leisurely
adjusted, with a view to mutual convenience.

On the other hand, should the Company incautiously drop the _substance_
to pursue the _shadow_, and refuse the proposition of Government; and
should Parliament, upon a full and deliberate consideration of the
actual circumstances of the Company, deem it more advisable to bring
their accounts with the Public to a thorough investigation and final
settlement, than to admit the Company's new pretensions to _a perpetual
monopoly_;

1. The Company will lose as much of the China trade as may fall into the
hands of the private merchants, who _think_ they shall be able to sell
tea 85 per cent. cheaper than the Company.

2. They will lose the control of the India commerce, _and will carry on
their traffic in India as subjects_, in common with the private British
merchants.

3. By that loss, voluntarily incurred, they may throw the greatest part
of the trade into the hands of the private traders.

4. They will _lose the patronage of India, and the establishments
depending upon it_; which they will thus compel Parliament, contrary to
the disposition of Government, to place under different arrangements.

5. The accounts between the Public and the Company must be referred for
investigation to Commissioners of Inquiry, to be finally settled and
adjusted.

It is now for the Proprietors, after well considering these two
alternatives, to determine, under _which of the two_ their dividend will
be _most secure_.

With regard to Constitutional objections against taking the Government
of India out of the hands of the Company (upon which objection their
confidence in their present pretensions chiefly reposes), it is
difficult to conceive that the wisdom of Parliament, after the
experience of so many years, is unequal to the task of devising a system
as good as that of the Company, without incurring the evil which those
Constitutional objections suppose. The Company's Government, it must be
recollected, has been a production of chance, and has grown by the
progress of accidental events. It has, indeed, answered far better in
practice than could have been expected, if we consider its origin; and
therefore, it is not desirable that it should be materially altered;
neither is it likely that any such alteration of the system should be
contemplated, unless the indiscretion of the Company should impose upon
Parliament the necessity of resorting to that measure. But it certainly
does not seem to be a measure insuperably difficult, to preserve
whatever is really good in the present system, and even to remedy some
of its defects, without departing from the path of experience, and
resorting to improvements of theory and experiment.

There is one point of view, however, in which such a system would
acquire an evident advantage over that which has hitherto obtained: viz.
that it would, in every Session, be liable to the revision of
Parliament, and to the immediate correction of every error which might
be observed, and to such further continual improvements as experience
might direct; _not being embarrassed by the compact of a Charter_.

GRACCHUS.




LETTER VIII.


_Wednesday, February 17, 1813._

It is very observable, that the objections which have been made by the
East India Company to the admission of ships, returning from India, to
import and dispose of their cargoes at any other place than the Port of
London, are not founded so much upon any statement of the injury which
the trade of the Company would sustain by admitting them, as upon a
provident regard for the adventurers themselves, and a caution held out
to them not to entertain an expectation of benefiting by any commercial
speculation in India; since the long experience of the Company has
enabled them to show, that it must be ultimately ruinous to the
speculator. The sum of the experience, alleged by those who have come
forward to defend this point, is, "_That it is not practicable to extend
the consumption of European manufactures generally in India_;" and the
facts which they have asserted in support of this experimental argument,
and upon which they rest its strength, are these four following:

1. That the natives of India entertain a strong characteristic aversion,
to engage in commercial transactions with foreigners.

2. That their religious prejudices, customs, habits, and tastes, render
it impossible that they should ever become consumers of our
manufactures, to any extent.

3. That their poverty opposes an insuperable bar to such consumption.

4. That these facts and their consequences are demonstrated in the
examples of the Portuguese and the Dutch, who were not able to carry
their export commerce with India to any considerable extent.

Let us take these several propositions in their order; and examine, how
far they possess that force of truth, which the Company has supposed to
belong to them.

1. In the infancy of the European intercourse with India, the sole
object of those who engaged in its commerce was, to procure the produce
and commodities of the East. In this pursuit, so far were the natives
from opposing any obstacles to their endeavours, that they were found
disposed to afford every facility to a traffic, which brought them
_specie_ in exchange for their manufactures, and for the productions of
their soil. This fact, which is established by every writer who treated
upon the subject of the India commerce during that period, would of
itself constitute a complete answer to those who advance the
proposition, that the natives of India are averse, through an
established prejudice, to engage in commercial transactions with
foreigners.

When the ingenuity of the French and German artists enabled the
speculators in this traffic to introduce _works of fancy_, we learn from
Tavernier, who made six several journeys, between the years 1645 and
1670, from France to India, by various routes, that the Rajahs of
Hindostan and of the Deccan, as well as the Mahomedan princes of those
countries, admitted him into their states; that the articles of
manufacture which he introduced were received and purchased with an
avidity which encouraged him to continue, for so many years, the pursuit
of that commerce; that he found the natives of India, spread over the
whole range of country from the Indus to the Caspian Sea, engaged in the
active prosecution of foreign traffic; and that the number of _Banyans_
(the chief commercial cast of Hindoos) at that time established at
Ispahan, were not less than ten thousand. Forster, who, in a more recent
period, followed Tavernier in one of the routes which he had traversed,
informs us, that, in the year 1783, he found Banyans established at
Astrachan, within the Russian empire. And we further learn from Bruce,
that the principal agents of commerce at Mocha and Jedda, in the Red
Sea, were Banyans; and that they had even extended themselves into
Abyssinia. No stronger evidence, therefore, can be required to make it
manifest, that foreign as well as internal trade has been in all ages,
and still continues to be at the present day, a common practice, and a
favourite pursuit of the Hindoos.

2. With regard to the restrictive operation of the religious prejudices
and customs of the Hindoos, against the adoption of foreign articles of
manufacture; Mr. Colebrooke, lately a Member of the Supreme Council, and
an eminent Oriental scholar, has furnished us with information upon this
subject, equally important and decisive. In an unpublished work, on the
Agriculture and Commerce of Bengal, cited in _The Edinburgh Review_, for
November 1812, that gentleman observes, that, according to the
sentiments of the Hindoos, "All things come _undefiled_ from _the
shop_;" or, in the words of Menu, "The hands of an artist employed in
his art are always pure; and so is every vendible commodity when exposed
to sale: that woollens are purified by a single exposure to air, while
water is necessary to purify other clothes." Proceeding with these
principles, he further informs us, "That the rainy season and winter of
India afford real occasion for the use of woollens; that the fabrics of
Europe are always preferred; and, if the articles were adapted in the
manufacture to the Indian use, and the price reduced, the consumption
would descend from the middle even to the more numerous classes. That
the natives of India do not want a taste for porcelaine, and other
elegant wares; that they require vast quantities of metallic vessels,
and of hardware; that, considering the greatness of the population, and
the disposition of the natives to use European manufactures, it cannot
be doubted, that a great vend might be found, and that the demand will
increase with the restoration of wealth."

The authority of Mr. Colebrooke on this subject would be conclusive,
even if it stood alone: but it may be supported by a reference to the
opinion of many persons, who have been resident in the great cities of
India. Those persons would be found to testify, that at Delhi, at
Lucknow, at Hydrabad, Mysore, and Tanjore, in all the capitals, whether
Hindoo or Mahomedan, a taste prevails amongst the natives for a variety
of articles of European manufacture. The late Nabob of Oude, was known
to have affected the European dress; as may be seen by the costume of
his picture, in the possession of the Marquis Wellesley.

A large assortment of cut glass lustres has been provided by order, for
the Soubahdar of the Deccan; and a person is now proceeding to India,
with the license of the Company, for the express purpose of arranging
them, when they shall have reached his palace of Hydrabad.

The Rajah of Mysore (and, in the same manner, many of the Serdars of
that state), is frequently clothed in scarlet cloth; his servants are
generally dressed in woollen of that colour; and he often travels in an
English carriage, driven by postillions, who are habited in the English
costume. The Rajah of Tanjore exhibits in his palace a colossal marble
statue of himself, wrought by the hand of Flaxman; and the monument of
his revered Mentor, the late celebrated missionary Swartz, sculptured by
the same eminent artist, was executed and sent to Tanjore, at the
express and urgent desire of that enlightened Prince.

We must further observe, that so far are the religious and civil habits
of the Hindoos from obstructing the intercourse of trade, that their
policy has connected trade with religion; and the great festivals of
their worship, are at the same time the appointed periods and scenes of
their most active commerce. Jaggernaut, Ramisseram, Tripetty, are the
most celebrated places of Hindoo devotion within the British dominions;
and every one who has resided in India must know, that _fairs_ are held
at those places at the periods, when the greatest concourse of pilgrims
is drawn to them by the celebration of their religious rites and
ceremonies. In further illustration of the disposition of the natives to
traffic, in every way by which profit can be derived, the following fact
may be stated; which can be attested by every officer who served with
the army under Sir Arthur Wellesley (now Marquis of Wellington), against
the Mahrattas, in 1803. The distant and severe service in which that
army had been engaged, had exhausted the store of European necessaries
with which it had advanced against the enemy; and the officers arrived
at Poonah, almost destitute of those comforts and accommodations. But
they found the native merchants of that capital provided with the most
essential of those several articles, and they were soon supplied,
through the agency of those merchants, with every thing for which they
had occasion. Poonah is the capital of a Brahmin government; and,
therefore, this single fact would serve to furnish a complete answer to
every thing that has been asserted, against the practicability of
introducing and extending the manufactures of Europe into every part of
Hindostan.

3. That the poverty of a large majority of the native subjects of our
Indian Empire is such, as to disable them from acquiring our
manufactures, is certainly true; but it is no less true, that a very
considerable portion of that population possess the means of indulging
in every article of convenience and luxury, both native and European. It
has been very generally stated, that there are only _two_ classes of
people in India, the very rich and the very poor. But a minute
investigation into the society of India, would discover the error of
this statement, and would show, that there exists a third and _middle_
class, far removed from the condition of either of the others; greatly
exceeding in number the former of these, and falling far short of the
latter. This class, as they certainly possess the means, would, if
proper steps were taken, materially contribute to the demand and
consumption of many of our home manufactures.

4. With respect to the evidence, attempted to be drawn from the ill
success of the Portuguese and Dutch traders, we are to observe, that the
situation of the Portuguese and the Dutch, during the period when they
were in possession of the European trade with India, was so exceedingly
different from that of the British nation at the present moment, that it
is scarcely possible to draw a sound comparison between them. The native
Governments were at that time powerful; and the establishments of the
Portuguese, and afterwards of the Dutch, extended but a short distance
from the sea-coast; the manufactures of Europe were, in a manner, in
their infancy; and neither Portugal nor Holland were manufacturing
countries. Whereas, the British empire is now established over the
richest and most populous regions of India, and its influence is
extended even further than its dominion; the manufactures of the United
Kingdom have attained a degree of perfection, which never has been
equalled; they can be fashioned to the tastes, the wants, and the
caprices of every nation and climate; and certainly, the interests of
the country call for the cultivation of every channel, which can be
opened for the enlargement of our commerce.

We cannot better conclude these observations, than by applying the
circumstantial evidence which they afford, to Mr. Dundas's letter of the
2d April 1800; in which that Minister admitted the fact, of a
_progressively increasing_ consumption; but, at the same time,
conceived, that the _customs of the natives_ would prescribe _limits_ to
its extension. "I do not mean to say," says he, "that the exports from
this country to India have not been _very considerably increased of late
years_; and I make no doubt that, from recent circumstances, _they may
be still considerably increased_. But the prospect, _from the causes I
have already referred to_, must always be a limited one." What these
causes are he thus explains:--"The export trade to India can never be
extended to any degree, proportionate to the wealth and population of
the Indian Empire; neither can the returns upon it be very profitable to
individuals. Those who attend to _the manners_, _the manufactures_,
_the food_, _the raiment_, _the moral and religious prejudices of that
country_, can be at no loss to trace _the causes_ why this proposition
must be _a true one_."

The evidence which has been produced demonstrates, that neither the
manners, raiments, nor prejudices of Hindostan, are of a nature to
impede the introduction of articles of European manufacture; and it thus
proves, that _the causes_ assigned for the limitation of our export
trade, are not calculated to impose any such limitation. What, then, it
may be asked, are the causes, why the consumption of the manufactures of
Europe in India has in no degree kept pace with the extension of our
territories, and of their population? The examination of this branch of
our subject would carry us to too great a length on the present
occasion, and will therefore best be reserved for a separate
communication.

GRACCHUS.




LETTER IX.


_Saturday, March 20, 1813._

In searching for the _causes_, which have prevented an extensive
introduction of the British manufactures into the countries subject to
the dominion or influence of the British Crown in India, it naturally
occurs; that no measure appears ever to have been concerted, for the
general purpose of alluring the attention of the natives of India to the
articles of European importation. This neglect, has evidently arisen
from the opinions which have been so erroneously entertained, concerning
the civil and religious prejudices of the Hindoos.

The evidence of Mr. Colebrooke has been adduced, to prove that those
opinions are wholly unfounded; the following extracts from the Travels
of Forster, in the years 1782-3, will further evince, that the Hindoos,
far from entertaining any indisposition to engage in commercial dealings
with strangers, have widely extended themselves in different foreign
countries for that express purpose.

HERAT.--"At Herat, I found in two Karavanseras about one hundred Hindoo
merchants, who, by the maintenance of a brisk commerce, and by
extending a long chain of credit, have become valuable subjects to the
Government. When the Hindoos cross the Attock, they usually put on the
dress of a northern Asiatic, being seldom seen without a long cloth
coat, and a high cap[5]."

TURSHISH.--"About one hundred Hindoo families, from Moultan and
Jessilmere, are established in this town, which is the extreme limit of
their emigration on this side of Persia. They occupy a quarter in which
no Mahomedan is permitted to reside; and I was not a little surprised to
see those of the Bramin sect distinguished by the appellation of
_Peerzadah_, a title which the Mahomedans usually bestow on the
descendants of their Prophet. Small companies of Hindoos are also
settled at Meschid, Yezd, Kachin, Casbin, and some parts of the Caspian
shore; and more extensive societies are established in the different
parts of the Persian Gulf, where they maintain a navigable commerce with
the western coast of India[6]."

BAKU.--"A society of Moultan Hindoos, which has long been established at
Baku, contributes largely to the circulation of its commerce; and, with
the Armenians, they may be accounted the principal merchants of
Shirwan. The Hindoos of this quarter usually embark at Tatta, a large
insular town in the lower tract of the Indus; whence they proceed to
Bassorah, and thence accompany the caravans, which are frequently
passing into Persia: some also travel inland to the Caspian Sea, by the
road of Candahar and Herat. I must here mention, that we brought from
Baku five Hindoos; two of them were merchants of Moultan, and three were
mendicants, a father, his son, and a Sunyassee (the name of a religious
sect of Hindoos, chiefly of the Brahmin tribe). The Hindoos had supplied
the little wants of the latter, and recommended him _to their agents in
Russia_, whence, he said, he should like to proceed with me to England.
The Moultanee Hindoos were going to Astrachan, merely on a commercial
adventure[7]."

ASTRACHAN.--"The Hindoos also enjoy at Astrachan every fair indulgence.
They are not stationary residents, nor do they keep any of their females
in this city; but, after accumulating a certain property, they return to
India, and are succeeded by other adventurers. Being a mercantile sect
of their nation, and occupied in a desultory species of traffic, they
have neglected to preserve any record of their first settlement, and
subsequent progress, in this quarter of Russia; nor is the fact
ascertained, with any accuracy, by the natives of Astrachan[8]."

Having thus seen, that the natives of India are in no respect averse to
engage in commercial dealings with strangers, and that no prejudices
exist among them of a nature to prevent them from using our
manufactures; we cannot but be forcibly struck with the reflection, that
no systematic plan has ever been adopted by the East India Company, to
attract the attention of the Hindoos to the various articles of our home
manufacture, or to stimulate their speculation in the traffic of them.
Whereas, in Europe, the Company have always found it necessary, for the
disposal of their Indian Imports, to take active measures for drawing
the attention of the nations of the European Continent to their sales in
London.

The Directors, in their letter to Lord Buckinghamshire, under date of
the 15th of April, 1812, (adverting to their sales in Europe,) observe,
"That the Foreign Buyers repose confidence in the regularity and
publicity with which the Company's sales are conducted; that the
particulars of their cargoes are published immediately on the arrival
of the ships, and distributed all over the Continent. That notices of
the quantities to be sold, and periods of sale, are also published for
general distribution; and that the sales of each description of goods
are made at stated periods, twice in the year."

_No measure of this nature has ever been projected for India_; and yet,
the predilection of the natives of India, both Hindoo and Mahomedan, for
public shows, scenes of general resort, and exhibitions of every kind,
is so well known, that we may confidently affirm, that nothing could
have a surer tendency to draw them together, than a display, at
periodical fairs, of our various manufactures. Fairs of this kind, for
the sale of their home manufactures, have been held from time
immemorial, in every part of India. The Company, therefore, needed only
to engraft, upon an established usage of the Hindoos, a regular plan of
periodical fairs; and, by thus adopting in India a course analogous to
that which they have found it necessary to employ in Europe, they might
generally have arrived at giving to Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay,
attractions of curiosity and mercantile interest, which would most
probably have drawn to those settlements the wealthy natives from every
part of the East; and have rendered the capital cities of British India,
what Amsterdam, Frankfort, and Leipsic have long been in Europe, the
resorts of all descriptions of people, and the repositories of every
European article of use and luxury. From these different centres of
commerce, the markets of the interior of India, and especially those
held at the scenes of religious assembly, might be furnished with
supplies; and, under the fostering encouragement of a wise and provident
Government, the intelligence and enterprise of the natives of India
might be called into action, and be stimulated, by a powerful motive, to
exert in their own country those commercial talents that have obtained
for them the encouragements, which, upon the unimpeachable testimony of
Mr. Forster, they have long received in Persia, and in parts of Russia.

The advantage of collecting together, at stated periods and in
established points, the productions of human industry and ingenuity, has
been so universally felt by all nations; that there is scarcely a
country, advanced to any degree of civilization, in which the practice
has not prevailed. To effect this object, with a view to the extension
of our export trade in India, _active encouragement_ is alone requisite;
but, in order to give it stability, _native agency_ must be called forth
into action. The supplies which (as was mentioned on a former occasion)
were found at Poonah, were obtained from that source alone. The Parsee
merchants at Bombay, are the principal agents of the Commanders and
Officers of the Company's ships; such parts of their investments as are
not disposed of among the European population, are purchased, and
circulated in the interior, by the Parsees. The small supplies of
European manufactures which find their way into the principal cities of
the Deccan, proceed from this source: but there is reason to believe,
that the articles which arrive at those places are too frequently of an
inferior sort, or such as have sustained damage in the transit from
Europe.

To give perfection to the great object here sketched out, it will be
indispensably necessary that the local authorities in India should
direct their most serious attention to this subject. As _our Indian
empire is our only security for our Indian trade_, so our Indian trade
must be rendered an object of vigilant concern to those who administer
the Government of that empire. From the multiplicity and importance of
their other avocations, that trade has not hitherto received all the
consideration to which its high value is entitled; but, whenever an
adequate regard shall be paid to it, it will become a duty of the
Governments to take active and effectual steps, for _drawing the
attention of the natives to our exported commodities_, and for
_promoting the dispersion of those commodities_, within the sphere of
their influence or power.

We now discern _one operative cause_ of the comparatively small demand
for, and consumption of, our European articles, in the Indian empire; a
cause, however, which it is within our capacity to control, or to
remove. And, after what has been summarily exposed, in this and in the
preceding communication, it can be no difficult point to determine,
whether _this cause_, or the alleged _prejudices of the Hindoos_, have
most contributed to limit the extent of our Export Trade to India.

GRACCHUS.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Forster's Travels, p. 135-6.

[6] P. 166.

[7] Forster's Travels, p. 228.

[8] Forster's Travels, p. 259.




LETTER X.

THE RIGHTS AND PRETENSIONS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.


_Monday, March 8, 1813._

It is now become a matter of the most solemn importance, that the public
attention should be called to a clear and deliberate survey of THE
RIGHTS and PRETENSIONS of the East India Company; and that the judgment
of Parliament should be directed to, and its sense declared upon, the
subject of those pretensions, which have generated A NEW CONSTITUTIONAL
QUESTION, and are now carried to an height to affect the supreme
Sovereignty of the State. To discuss those Rights and Pretensions at
large, would demand a far more extended space than the present occasion
can supply; but it would be altogether unnecessary to enter into a more
enlarged discussion; because, in order to obtain the end here proposed,
of drawing and fixing the attention of Parliament and the Public upon
the subject, little more is required, than to bring those several Rights
and Pretensions into one compressed and distinct point of view; and to
leave it to the legislative wisdom to determine finally upon their
validity.

The rights of the East India Company, are usually distinguished into
their _temporary_ rights, and their _perpetual_ or _permanent_ rights.

I. The temporary rights of the Company are:

1. _A right to the exclusive trade with all the countries lying eastward
from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan._ This right is _a
lease_ of all the _public right_ to the trade of those parts of the
world; which lease has been renewed to the Company, from time to time,
in consideration of a varying premium to be paid by them to the Public.

2. _A right to administer the government and revenue of all the
territories in India acquired by them during their term in the
exclusive trade._ This is a right delegated from the Crown, with the
assent of Parliament; and which can be possessed by the Company no
longer, than the authority from which it emanates has, or shall
prescribe.

Upon the expiration of these temporary rights, which determine, as the
law at present stands, in the ensuing year, 1814, the East India Company
will remain in possession of whatever _permanent_ rights shall be found
to pertain to them.

II. The _perpetual_, or more properly, the _permanent_ rights of the
Company, must be considered under two distinct heads, viz. _admitted_
and _alleged_.

§ 1. The _admitted_ permanent rights are,

1. _To be a Body Politic and Corporate, with perpetual
succession._--This right has been confirmed by various succeeding
Charters and Statutes. But there are some observations, which it is
important to make upon this subject. The first Charter, granted by Queen
Elizabeth, in 1601, to the first or London East India Company, created
_both its corporate capacity and its exclusive privilege, to continue
for a term of fifteen years_; but it provided, that, in case it should
not prove beneficial to the Public, the _whole of the grant_ might at
any time be determined, upon two years notice given to the Company. The
succeeding Charters of James I. Charles II. James II. and William and
Mary, conferred, in the same manner, both the corporate capacity and the
exclusive privilege; and though they did not, like the former, fix a
term for their duration, yet they rendered the _whole grant_
determinable upon three years notice. No provision is introduced into
any of these Charters, to make the corporate capacity outlast the
exclusive trade. When the principle of "_a more national, general and
extensive trade to India_," declared in the Charter of the 5th of
William and Mary, had been followed by the measure of creating a General
Society of Merchants, and of erecting _a New Company_, the advocates for
that measure took particular care to show, "That the Old Company, in
reciting their Charters, had _forgot_ to mention the _provisos_ therein,
viz. that the respective Kings of England, who granted them, reserved a
discretionary power to _make them void_ on three years warning[9]." This
observation did not apply to their exclusive privilege only, but
extended equally to their corporate capacity; both being determinable by
the same warning, because both were derived from the same grant, the
whole of which grant was made liable to that determination,
notwithstanding their corporate capacity was to enjoy "_perpetual
succession_." Hence it is manifest, that the perpetuity conferred by the
Charter was not perpetuity of exclusive trade, or political power, but
of _corporate succession_. But perpetual succession in a body corporate,
does not imply perpetuity of duration, but merely _uninterrupted_
succession of the individuals who compose it; which every corporate body
must possess, whatever may be the term of its duration, in order that it
may become, and may be able to perform the acts of, _a legal person_.

The Statute of 9 and 10, and the Charter of 10 William III. which
created _both the corporate capacity and the exclusive privilege_ of the
_New_, or English Company, followed the example of the former Charter,
granted to the _Old_ Company, and rendered the _whole grant_
determinable by the same process. But, in the 10th year of Queen Anne,
after the two Companies had become _United_, they represented the great
hazard they should encounter, by engaging in any considerable expenses
for securing _the Pepper Trade_, under the limitation of that clause; in
consequence of which representation the clause was repealed, and the
limitation was _left open_. The Company from thence inferred, that they
had acquired a perpetuity of duration, both for their corporate capacity
and their exclusive privilege; the continuance of _both_ of which had
ever been subjected to the same rule of determination. They soon,
however, became sensible that such could not be the true intention of
the Act, and they "submitted themselves to Parliament[10]" on the
subject; in consequence of which a limited term of exclusive trade was
assigned them, without any limitation being imposed upon the _negative_
perpetuity of duration, which they had acquired for their Corporation by
the repeal of the determining clause. But it was not till the year 1730,
the third year of the late King, that the Company obtained a true and
_positive_ perpetuity of duration for their Body Corporate; at which
time an Act was passed, empowering them to continue to trade to the East
Indies, as a Company of Merchants, although their exclusive right to the
trade, and their power of administering the government and revenues of
India, should be determined by Parliament. From that time only, the
Incorporation and the Exclusive Privilege become distinguished. The
distinctions here made will be found of material importance, in another
part of this statement.

2. _A right to acquire and possess lands, tenements, and property of
every kind; and to dispose of the same, under a Common Seal._--This
right was conferred by the Charter of the 10th of King William; but by
Stat. 3 G. 2. c. 14. § 14. the Company's estates _in Great Britain_ were
limited to the value of 10,000l. per annum. In virtue of this right, the
East India Company were empowered to settle "_factories and
plantations_," within the limits of their exclusive trade. The Charter
of William, indeed, adds also "_forts_," with the power of "_ruling,
ordering, and governing them_;" but that this privilege cannot attach
upon their corporate and _permanent_ capacity, will presently be made to
appear. Fortresses and fortifications cannot, from their nature and use,
become absolute private property; being part of the public defences of
the Empire, they are (to speak with Lord Hale) "_affected with a public
interest_, and therefore _cease to be juris privati only_[11]." The
building a fort is an act done, in its nature, by virtue of a sovereign
authority, and is therefore the dereliction of the private right of
property for a public and general purpose. In asserting for the Company
a _private_ right to forts and fortifications, the Company's advocates
have therefore fallen into an extreme error, from not discriminating
between the rights which necessarily belong to their _delegated
sovereignty_, and those which can alone be annexed to their _commercial
corporation_. And this brings us to the consideration of

§ 2. The _alleged_ permanent rights of the Company, which require to be
considered under _two_ descriptions, viz. rights _alleged for them_ at
the expiration of their last exclusive Charter, and rights _alleged by
them_ at the present moment, with a view to the renewal of their present
Charter. _These_ are the rights, or more properly the pretensions, which
have been pronounced by GRACCHUS, "absolutely unmaintainable, and
incompatible with the freedom of British subjects;" and not their true
legitimate rights, as the writer of a letter under the signature of
PROBUS has chosen to assume.

The rights _alleged for them_ were these:--

1. _A right to possess in perpetuity certain extensive territories and
seaports in India, after their right to the exclusive trade with those
places shall cease._ In consequence of different ancient Charters,
granting to the Company an exclusive trade, together with certain powers
of Government, they have acquired, and actually possess, various
islands, seaports, forts, factories, settlements, districts, and
territories in India, together with the island of St. Helena; either by
grants from the Crown, by conquest, purchase, or by grants from the
native powers in India. The nature and extent of their property in these
several possessions, is an important public question. By grants from the
Crown to the original or London Company, and by conveyance from that
Company, they possess St. Helena and Bombay. By purchase, conquest, or
by Indian grants, they possess Calcutta and Fort William, Madras, and
Fort St. George, and various other important seats of trade; of all of
which, for a long course of time; they have enjoyed the exclusive
benefit.

With respect to the first of these; it is evident, that the Old Company
could only convey the places which they held of the Crown as they
themselves held them, and subject to the same principles of policy and
state under which they themselves had received them. The Grants of
Charles II., which conceded Bombay and St. Helena to the first Company,
refer to the Charter of the 13th of the same reign, which Charter refers
to, and confirms the preceding Charters of Elizabeth and James I.,
making them _the ground_ of the Grants. The Charter of Elizabeth
declares its principle to be, "the tendering the honour of the nation,
the wealth of the people, the increase of navigation, the advancement of
lawful traffic, and the benefit of the Commonwealth." The principle
declared in the Charter of James I. is, "that it will be a very great
honour, and in many respects profitable, to THE CROWN and THE
COMMONWEALTH." By a reference to, and confirmation of, these several
Charters, in the Charter of Charles II., and in the grants of St. Helena
and Bombay, these principles are virtually adopted; the _end and
purpose of the Grants_ is declared; and their ground is proclaimed to
be, the honour of the British Crown, and the welfare of the British
Nation. It was those great _public interests_, and not the _separate
interests_ of the Company, that the Crown had in view, in conceding the
property of those distant dependencies.

By grants from the native powers, the Company are in actual possession
of many extensive and valuable territories. The doctrine of the law of
England, in regard to the operation of these Grants, was distinctly and
officially declared in the Report of the Attorney-General Mr. Pratt, and
Solicitor-General Mr. Charles Yorke, in the year 1757, viz. That the
moment the _right of property_ vested in the Company by the Indian
Grants, the _right of sovereignty_ vested necessarily in the Crown of
England. "The property of the soil (said those eminent lawyers) vested
in the Company by the Indian Grants, _subject only_ to Your Majesty's
right of sovereignty over the settlements, and over the inhabitants as
British subjects; who carry with them Your Majesty's laws, wherever they
form colonies, and receive Your Majesty's protection by virtue of your
Royal Charters[12]." In considering this head of right, the case of
_the five Northern Circars_, to which the Company lay claim in their
Petition, demands a particular attention; because, the advocates of the
Company's pretensions are under a manifest error, with respect to their
tenure of those territories. They maintain, that the Circars are held by
the Company in perpetuity, under _a military service_, as tributaries to
the Indian Power or Powers by which they were originally ceded; and that
the Crown of England has no title to interfere, between them and their
supposed Indian Chief. This pretension renders it absolutely necessary,
to take a general view of the situation of the Company with respect to
the Circars.

In the year 1753, the French were in the confirmed possession of the
five Circars, together with the adjoining fort and dependencies of
Masulipatam; of all of which they declared themselves to have obtained
"_the complete sovereignty for ever_," by a grant from the Subah of the
Deccan, a Prince nominally dependent on the Imperial Crown of the Mogul.
"So that these territories (says Mr. Orme), rendered the French masters
of the greatest dominion, both in extent and value, that had ever been
possessed in Indostan by Europeans, not excepting the Portuguese when at
the height of their prosperity[13]." The establishment of the French
power in these important provinces, during the war between England and
France, excited the most serious alarm in the Company, by threatening
their settlements and possessions in Bengal; and called forth the
vigorous and splendid exertions of Lord Clive, who, in the year 1759,
sent a military force against Conflans, the French Commander, under the
command of Colonel Forde. That gallant Officer succeeded in defeating
the enemy in a pitched battle at Peddipore; and, pursuing him from one
extremity of the Circars to the other, terminated the campaign by the
capture of Masulipatam: and thus, by obliging the French to abandon the
Circars, the right of conquest was made good against the French. For it
is not necessary that every part of a conquered country should be
acquired by a separate victory, if the enemy is compelled to evacuate
his territory in consequence of any decisive operation; and the
retention of Masulipatam, was the evidence of the triumph of the British
arms over the French. That this was _the object_ of the campaign, is
distinctly shown in the declaration made by Lord Clive before the Select
Committee of the House of Commons, in the year 1772. Lord Clive stated
to the House, "That soon after his appointment of President of the
Company's affairs in Bengal, in 1758, he took into his most serious
consideration the situation of affairs upon the coast of Coromandel.
Monsieur Lally was arrived with such a force, as threatened not only
the destruction of all the settlements there, but of all the East India
Company's possessions. That he thought it was his duty to contribute his
mite towards the destruction of the French, and therefore projected _the
scheme of depriving the French of the Northern Circars_, contrary to the
inclination of his whole Council. That _this expedition succeeded
completely, for the French were totally driven out by_ Col. Forde, _with
the Company's troops_, whose conduct and gallantry upon that occasion
was equal, if not superior, to any thing that had happened during the
whole course of the war[14]." This evidence of Lord Clive proves, that
the scheme was _entirely military_, and that the success was _the
success of arms_. By the Treaty of Peace concluded at Paris in 1763,
(Art. 11,) "the Crown of France renounced all pretensions to those
territories," which thus devolved, by an indisputable right of conquest,
to the Crown of England. The Company, indeed, in the same year obtained
a grant of Masulipatam from the Subah of the Deccan, which they now set
forth in their Petition to Parliament: but yet, their most strenuous
advocates admit, that Masulipatam belongs to the Crown of England, _by
right of conquest over the French_[15]. And the same argument, that
proves a right of conquest to Masulipatam, proves also a similar right
to the Northern Circars.

In 1765, however, the Company being desirous of acquiring _the form of
an Indian title_ to the Circars, against the Subah, who might reclaim
them, negotiated for a grant of those provinces at Delhi, over the head
of the Subah; which grant they obtained. But the pretensions of the
Subah, who was close at hand, might disturb them in their attempts to
occupy the provinces; they therefore thought it _expedient_, to
temporize with the Subah, and to enter into a separate negotiation with
him, to induce him to surrender them; and they agreed to hold the
provinces of him also, under an engagement to supply him with a
contingent aid of _military force_, when called upon; and moreover, to
pay him annually a tribute in money. By thus confusing their titles
(which, instead of confirming, mutually defeated each other), they fully
demonstrated the inefficacy and impotency of the Mogul's grant, in the
present fallen state of that Empire. But the Company could only engage
themselves for _military service_, so far as they possessed the ability;
and their ability, is limited by the extent of their _military power_;
which, being a part of their _sovereign power_, must necessarily
determine with their sovereign capacity: as will be shown in the next
article. Whenever that capacity ceases, they will be unable to furnish a
single soldier, because they will be unable to raise a single soldier
for the defence of the provinces. In that event, the Crown must of
necessity interfere, to maintain and defend the territories; and then,
_the original cause_ which led to the acquirement of the Circars,
namely, the expulsion of the French _by force of arms_, and their
exclusion by _the influence of the same arms_ in the Treaty of 1763,
will be the true ground on which to rest _the question of right_: a
right in _the Crown of England_, which had existence, prior to _the
form_ of the Mogul's grant, and prior also to _the expedient_ of the
grant from the Subah. And here we must keep in mind, that all
territories possessed by the Company in India, by whatever means they
have been acquired, are necessarily incorporated into the British
Empire, and become subject to its Imperial Crown; conformably to the
resolution of the House of Commons, in the year 1773: "_That all
acquisitions made under the influence of a military force, or by treaty
with foreign Princes, do of right belong to the State._" And as the
whole fabric of BRITISH INDIA grew out of a principle of advancing _the
public welfare_, and was not an edifice raised merely for the separate
welfare of _the Company_, every private interest comprehended in that
fabric is, by every acknowledged maxim of State, public right, and
consistency, subordinate; and must be determined by the security of the
public good.

2. _A right to retain in perpetuity certain essential rights of
sovereignty, after the present delegated sovereignty of the Company
shall have reverted to the Crown._--Although this pretension is a
contradiction in terms, yet the assertors of it entertained no doubts of
its reality. They claimed for the Company, in their permanent capacity
of a trading body corporate, a right "_to appoint governors, to build
and maintain forts, to muster forces by sea and land, to coin money, and
to erect Courts of Judicature_[16]," even after they shall have lost
their power of administering the Government of India; and this claim is
renewed for the Company at the present day[17]. There is in this
pretension so radical an ignorance of _the nature of sovereignty_, that
it is inconceivable how it could have been entertained by any one, who
had ever given a thought to the subject of law or government. The powers
here enumerated, are essential prerogatives of sovereignty; which may
indeed be delegated for a time by authority of Parliament, but can never
be granted in full property by the Crown. In order to appoint governors,
it is first necessary to be invested with the power of government. The
same power is manifestly necessary, in order to be able _legally to
raise or muster any force by sea or land_, either for defence, or for
any other military service. And it is acknowledged, that _the power of
government_ has never been granted to the East India Company, _but with
limitation_. In the grants of Bombay and St. Helena, the Company is
certainly empowered to erect forts, and to raise and employ forces; but
by the same grants they are invested with the powers of Captain General
in order to that end; virtually in the first, and _expressly_ in the
second. Will it be imagined, that they are to retain the authority of
_Captain General_, after their powers of _government_ shall cease? And
if not, it must be evident, that their authority over forts, and all
their military power, must determine, whenever their delegated power of
Captain General shall determine. It would be an insult to any reader,
who has ever cast his eye even on the elementary Commentaries of Sir
William Blackstone, to insist upon a truth so obvious and simple. With
regard to the _erecting of Courts_, no such power is given in any of the
Charters produced in evidence. The Crown erects the Court, and the power
granted to the Company is, and necessarily must be, limited and
subordinate. The _true cause_ of that extraordinary error, is plainly
this: the Charters of King William and Queen Anne, upon which they rest
these pretensions, conferred at one and the same time (as has been
already observed), both their corporate capacity and their exclusive
privilege. The assertors of those _permanent sovereign rights_, not
discriminating, by the principles of things, between the several powers
conferred in those Charters, have confused the provisions; and have
construed all the powers above enumerated, which by their nature could
only appertain to them as _delegated Sovereigns_, to belong to their
capacity of an _incorporated Company_. And, under this illusion, they
have imagined, that those powers are annexed to that perpetuity of their
corporate body which was first enacted in 1730, and confirmed in the 33d
year of the present reign; and that they do not constitute a part of
those powers of government, which have been conferred upon them, from
time to time, by their exclusive Charters. As this construction is
entirely arbitrary on the part of the Company, and as it is unsupported
by the principles either of law or sound reason, it will be best refuted
by the authority of Parliament.

3. _A right to exclude all British subjects from the Company's Indian
ports, after their own exclusive privilege shall be expired._--This
right has been claimed in the following words:--"Although their
exclusive right to the trade, and their power of administering the
government and revenues of India, were to be determined, they would
still remain an incorporated Company _in perpetuity_, with the
_exclusive_ property and _possession_ of Calcutta and Fort William,
Madras and Fort St. George, Bombay, Bencoolen, and St. Helena, and
various other estates and settlements in India. Whether, in the event of
the sole trade being determined, individuals would be able to carry on a
successful trade to India, _if the Company were to debar them the use of
their ports and factories_, may require a serious consideration[18]."

This is a claim, not only to a _practical_ exclusive trade, after the
right to exclusive trade _expressly granted_ by Parliament shall cease
and determine, but involves also claims of perpetual sovereignty. It is
incomprehensible, how it could be alleged by a writer who, in the
preceding page, had pointedly excepted from their powers, that of
converting the trade into "a _mischievous_ monopoly[19];" for, what more
_mischievous_ form could monopoly, or an hostile sovereignty, assume,
than that of excluding all British individuals from the chief ports and
seats of trade in India? By this alleged right, the grants of Charters
and the provisions of Parliament would be reduced to an absurdity. But
as this is a claim of _private right_ to cause a _public wrong_, it
cannot fail particularly to engage the consideration of Parliament.

The rights _alleged by the Company_ at the present day, are these:--

1. _A right to all the ports and territories in India, possessed by the
Company, of the same kind and extent as the right by which they hold
their freeholds in London._--This right has been solemnly asserted for
the Company, by the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Court of
Directors, in these words:--"The Company are AS MUCH owners of THE CHIEF
SEATS of European trade in the Indian Empire, as they are of THEIR
FREEHOLDS IN LONDON[20]." This is an open and unreserved declaration of
the East India Company, renewing and asserting the preceding allegations
made on their behalf at the expiration of their last exclusive Charter;
and the same allegation is now repeated in their Petition to Parliament,
though in terms somewhat more qualified than those which they addressed
to the Government; viz. "that _no person_ can have a right, except with
the consent of the proprietors of India stock, _to use the seats of
trade_ which the stockholders _have acquired_." But they must bring an
oblivion over all the reasons of state and policy by which _they exist
at all_, before they can carry in the face of the nation the proud
assertion, that they stand equally circumstanced, in regard of _private
right_, with respect to "_the chief seats of European commerce in the
Indian Empire_," and with respect to "_their freeholds in London_." They
will assuredly be told by Parliament, that they _may not_ exercise the
same arbitrary authority over the chief seats of Indian commerce, which
they may over their freeholds in London. With regard to their freeholds
in London, they may exclude all persons from entering them, they may
desert them themselves, or they may let them fall to ruin. But it is NOT
SO with regard to the chief seats of Indian commerce; they will find,
that they cannot arbitrarily exclude British subjects from those seats,
beyond a limited time; that they cannot _debar_ the nation the
beneficial use of them; and that they will not be suffered to render
them unavailable, or unprofitable. As soon as the India Trade shall be
thrown open, the ports of India will necessarily become open; and, if
the Company should then search for _their private right to close them_,
they will find, that it is merged in _the public right to use them_; or,
to use the words of Lord Hale, that "their _jus privatum_ is clothed and
superinduced with a _jus publicum_[21]."

2. The last right _alleged by the Company_ at the present crisis, which
forms the CLIMAX of their pretensions, and is the _key_ to all their
late proceedings, is that of a _perpetual union and incorporation with
the Supreme Government of the Indian Empire_; so that the Indian trade
and government must ever continue to be united _in them_, and cannot now
be separated, without endangering "_the British Empire in India, and the
British Constitution at home_." This pretension renders the question of
a _temporary_ exclusive trade entirely nugatory, because it is the
unqualified assertion of a _perpetual_ one; not to be received any more
as _a grant_ from Parliament, as hitherto it has been, but to be
extorted from Parliament through fear of the subversion of Parliament.
This pretension is founded upon the Company's interpretation of an
observation, made by a late eminent Minister to the Managers of the
Company's affairs, in the year 1800; viz. that "_the Government and the
trade of India are now so interwoven together_," as to establish an
indissoluble "_connexion of government and trade_." This _dictum_, is
assumed by the Company for an incontestable maxim of State, _as
applicable to their own Corporation_; and for an eternal principle,
connecting that Body Corporate with all future Indian Government. This
they denominate, "THE SYSTEM, _by which the relations between Great
Britain and the East Indies are now regulated_;" and, in their sanguine
hopes of gaining _perpetuity_ for their _system_, they already
congratulate themselves upon their Incorporation into the Sovereignty,
as a NEW, and FOURTH ESTATE of the Empire.

It is that maxim, evidently embraced for this construction at the
present crisis, that has emboldened the conductors of the Company's
concerns to assume so lofty a demeanour towards the King's servants; and
to venture to represent the cautious proceedings of Government in a
great political question (in which it appears only as _a moderator_
between two conflicting interests), to be an aggression against their
indisputable rights. It has been asked in the Court of Proprietors,
"whether the Ministers of the present day are become so far exalted
above their predecessors, or the Company so newly fallen, that adequate
communications should not be made to the latter, of the plans and
intentions of the former?" It is neither the one nor the other; but it
is, that _the Company_ are become so elated and intoxicated by the
ambitious expectation of being incorporated as a perpetual Member of the
Supreme Government, that they conceive they have no longer any measures
to keep with the Ministers of the Crown.

And can the British people _now_ fail to open their eyes, and to discern
the strait to which the ancient crown and realm of England would be
reduced, by submitting to acknowledge this _new estate_ in the Empire?
Greatly as it would be to be lamented that any thing should disturb the
present internal tranquillity of our political system, yet, if such
should be the necessary result of a resistance to the ambitious views of
the East India Company, it ought to be manfully and cheerfully
encountered; rather than admit, by a temporizing concession, a claim
which shall bend PARLIAMENT to the will of, and degrade THE CROWN to an
alliance with, a Company of its own subjects; which owes its recent
existence to the charters of the Crown, and the enactments of
Parliament, and yet aspires to seat itself for ever, side by side, by
its own supreme Government.

The Company have carried too far their confidence in the _constitutional
defence_ by which they hoped to ride in triumph over the Executive
Government. Their exorbitant pretensions have bred a _new constitutional
question_, to which the public mind is now turning. In their solicitude
to fortify themselves with _constitutional jealousies_, they have
constructed a formidable fortress, which threatens to embarrass the
Citadel of the State, and must therefore of necessity awaken its
jealousy. A change in the Administration of the Indian Government
(should the Company finally provoke such a change), _need not
necessarily_ throw the patronage of India into the hands of the Crown;
means are to be found, by which that political and constitutional evil
may be effectually guarded against. But if, through a precipitate
assumption, that no such adequate substitute can be provided for the
present system, Parliament should, at this critical moment, unguardedly
yield to the demands of the Company, and give its sanction to their
claims to a _perpetuity_ of those privileges which they have hitherto
been contented to receive _with limitation_, what difficulties would it
not entail upon its own future proceedings? If the _corporate
sovereignty_ of the Company is once absolutely _engrafted_ upon _the
Sovereignty of the State_, it cannot be extracted without lacerating the
ancient stock, and convulsing the general system.

The Company would have done wisely, if, instead of resting their case
upon pretensions erroneous in fact, inadmissible in law, and derogatory
of the authority addressed, they had rested it wholly upon their own
endeavours to promote the original purpose of their incorporation:
namely, _the honour of the Crown_, and _the advantage of the
commonwealth_. Upon that ground the Company might have stood strong; and
all that would then have remained for the consideration of Parliament,
would have been a question, how those great interests could, under
existing circumstances, be best advanced; either by continuing the
present arrangement without alteration, or by modifying it in such
particulars, as Parliament in its wisdom might judge to be necessary.
But instead of this, they have taken ground upon high pretensions of
RIGHT, which must necessarily provoke investigation; and we have
discovered, in the foregoing inquiry, how far those pretensions are
supported.

The determination of this great question, however, is now reserved for
Parliament; and, upon the wisdom of Parliament, the Country may with
confidence rely, for a full consideration of all the public rights,
commercial as well as political; and likewise, for the final adoption of
such an arrangement for the government and trade of India, as shall
appear to be the best calculated to advance the real interests, and to
promote the general prosperity of the Empire, both in the East and West.

GRACCHUS.


THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Anderson's Hist. of Commerce (1698), vol. ii. p. 221, fol.

[10] A Short Hist. of the East India Company, p. 6.

[11] De Portibus Maris, p. 2. c. 6. p. 77.

[12] Short Hist. of East India Company, p. 11.

[13] History of Indostan, vol. i. p. 335.

[14] Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xxxiii. p. 811.

[15] Short Hist. of the East India Company.

[16] Short Hist. of the East India Company, p. 56.

[17] Morning Post, Jan. 15, 1813, Letter, signed Probus.

[18] Short History of the East India Company, p. 38.

[19] Ibid. p. 37.

[20] Letter to Lord Buckinghamshire, Dec. 30, 1812.

[21] De Portibus Maris, p. 2. c. 7. p. 84.


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