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absurdity of Merchants being sovereigns; of their being plunged in debt and approaching towards ruin: and of the government of India being a solecism in politics,—an imperium in imperio.

For the truth of the remark, that their interests as Merchants have been not only perfectly compatible with their interests as sovereigns, but that these characters have respectively aided each other, we may adduce the high authority of the late Lord Melville, than whom no man of his time had a more complete knowledge of the affairs of India. "By the commercial capital of the Company at home," says this able statesman, "acting in connection with the public revenues under their administration abroad, they have mutually aided and administered to the wants of each other; and the result has been, the fortunate achievement of those brilliant events, upon the success of which depended the existence of the government, the territorial wealth, and the trade of India."

During the whole period of the present Charter, the political has been invariably debtor to the commercial concern of the company. But they have also mutually aided each other. As the territorial revenues have been frequently applied to purposes of commercial investment, so have the returns of commerce been rendered subservient to military and political operations.

With respect to the debt of the East India Company, when it is considered that their permanent debt in India and in Europe is only between 28 and 29 millions; that the population of their territories is 60 millions; and the gross annual revenue 16 millions; it will appear comparatively small, and even insignificant. It is only at the rate of 10s. a head for each individual of the population, while that of Great Britain is at the rate of 60l. a head; being as one to one hundred and twenty. The East India Company's affairs, then, so far from being in a state to create despondency, as has been so frequently and so erroneously asserted, may be said to be in a most florishing condition. The actual state of their territories is such as to leave no apprehensions of expensive or permanent hostility with the native powers; and Lord Minto, the present enlightened Governor-General, has recently con

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veyed to the Court of Directors assurances of his confident expectations, not only of bringing the expenditure within the income, but of realizing a large surplus revenue beyond the ordinary expenses in time of peace. From all this, it appears most manifest, not only that the apprehensions of the insolvency of the Company, so often expressed in and out of Parliament, have been either wholly feigned, or have arisen from a total ignorance of their real situation; but that, on the contrary, they are in a state not to be shaken, but by some great and unexpected convulsion, or by the adoption of some such destructive measure as that with which they are now threatened.

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Since 1793, both the population and the revenues of the Company's territories have been almost trebled and the duties on their Import Trade to Britain have augmented in at least a similar ratio.2 Their annual exports from this country are now £2,320,000; their tonnage 101,797 tons. If this be impending ruin, it is of a nature of which it is not usual to complain.

As to the system of Indian government being an imperium in imperio, which must mean, if it means any thing, that it is incompatible with the constitution of this country, I would ask, were any defence necessary, are not the British laws extended to the inhabitants of India, in as full a measure as their situation will allow? Are they not as well administered even as at home? And is not the condition of the natives of that country, who are under the dominion of the Company, as enviable as that of the inhabitants of any portion of the globe? I will add more so: and those persons would not be their friends, who might advise that the highest parts of the British constitution should be prematurely extended to them.

I am not aware that any objections worthy of notice, to a renewal of the Company's exclusive privileges, for another term of years, have been left unanswered. I do not, however, think that, in the course of the discussions which have taken place on this

In 1793, the revenue of India, on an average of three years, amounted to 6,897,7301.-Bruce's Report, &c. p. 47. It is now sixteen millions.

2 In 1793, the Duties on the Company's Import Trade exceeded one million (Bruce, p. 46): it now exceeds four.

subject, the Company's rights, and the injustice of violating those rights, without a palpable benefit to the public, and a full indemnification to themselves, have been always sufficiently insisted on. At no period of the monarchy, from the granting of their Charter by Queen Elizabeth, to the protectorate of Cromwell, nor even by that usurper, were the Company's rights to their forts, factories, or privileges of trade, called into question. Nor does it appear how, by the subsequent extension of territory and trade, which they effected, their rights to these possessions can be presumed to have, in any manner, diminished. This question has however, since that period, been carefully kept out of view; and the Company have been treated, at the different æras of the renewal of their charter, as a body, who had no rights or privileges, but such as his Majesty's Ministers, for the time being, might choose to leave to them, upon receiving a valuable consideration for the exigencies of the state. They have been treated as candidates for the renewal of a lease, having scarcely any superior claims to other bodies of men, who might bid equally high for the privilege of being constituted an East India Company. In this manner, contrary to all right and justice, was a second East India Company at one period formed, for the sake of a temporary accommodation in money to government; and the competition nearly proved the ruin of both. The violation of the Company's rights, by illegal licences to individuals, and associations, was also no unfrequent occurrence in their history. But the plan which is now meditated of depriving them of that privilege, by which alone they can deem their other privileges secure, I cannot but consider as a no less unjustifiable, and a much more dangerous violation of their rights, than any that has ever before been attempted.

As it is evinced by facts, so it is by the authority of eminent names, that the Government and Commerce of India are incapable of being separated, but at the imminent risk of destruction to both. Lord Melville, in his letter to the Chairman and Deputy Chairman, of the 28th of December, 1808, says "I have not yet heard, or read any arguments against the continuance of the system under which the British possessions in India are governed,

1 Vide Bruce's Annals of the East India Company, Vol. I. p. 572.

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of sufficient weight to counterbalance the practical benefits which have been derived from it, in their increased and increasing prosperity, and the general security and happiness of their inhabitants." On the same subject, the late Lord Melville, whose opinionon such matters is entitled to the highest deference, thus expresses himself, in a Letter of April 2, 1800:-" I remain equally satisfied as to the propriety of continuing a monopoly of trade (by this is meant as to ships: for as to goods, a monopoly did not exist) in the hands of the East India Company. Those who maintain the reverse, appear to me to be misled by general theories, without attending to the peculiar circumstances of the trade they are treating of. Viewing it even as a mere commercial question, I believe this proposition to be a sound one; and if the trade were laid open, the supposed advantages thence arising are at best very problematical, and would certainly be very precarious and short-lived. It is, however, totally to forget the question, to treat it as a mere commercial one! The same principles prove the necessity of the monopoly of Trade. The Government, and the Trade are interwoven together! And we have only to recur to a very recent experience, to learn the immense advantages which have flowed from that connection of Government and Trade."

The Chairman of the Court of Directors had, three years ago, pointed out to the President of the Board of Control, that the effects of the innovation proposed would "amount to the destruction of the Company's Indian Trade, their Indian Commercial Establishments, their Indian Shipping, and finally leave the China Monopoly so insulated and unsupported, as to bring that down also, and with it the whole fabric of the Company."

But what have we on the other side to counterbalance those strong facts, those incontrovertible inferences, and those high Authorities? Nothing but the vague and hypothetical reasonings of men, who erroneously conceive that they would themselves be benefited by a participation in the trade to India. It is, then, earnestly to be hoped that Ministers, if such indeed be their motive, will not "persist in this ruinous submission to known combination, and over-bearing importunity;" or at any rate, that the "wisdom of Parliament and the justice of the nation will reject those rash and violent innovations, evidently suggested from a deplorable ignorance of facts."

OBJECTIONS

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THE PROJECT OF

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A VICE CHANCELLOR

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