suppressed while those which appeared to have a contrary tendency, and to be well calculated to infuse a belief of its great value, were produced with all the emphasis which the case would bear, and displayed with studied exaggeration; and the attention of the reader was anxiously directed to the evidence which they appeared to afford in favour of the Company. - In a professed pleading, this conduct is less reprehensible, because impartiality is not expected nor pretended: but the historian appears in a different character: his ensign bears the sacred figure of truth: ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. He undertakes to be fair and impartial: he contracts with his reader a sacred obligation to that effect, which he is not at liberty to violate; and the reader has substantial reason to complain that his confidence has been abused, and that such covenant has been broken, as often as a partial selection of facts is presented to him.

We think that these reflections are of importance, because the occasions on which they apply are so extremely frequent, that the turpitude of them has really ceased to be observed; and men who are guided by the principles of honour, in all the other relations of life, deem it a very light matter to violate them in such instances as those to which we now call their attention. The works which Mr. Macpherson has previously given to the public have exhibited any marks rather than those of unfairness and deceit, and, we doubt not, thus bore the true impression of the character of their author; yet the history before us is not only really unfair, but seems to be intentionally unfair; intentionally to produce facts, or intentionally to withhold them, according as they were likely to strengthen or weaken the evidence in favour of that policy which Mr. Macpherson was occupied in recommending.

We will give an instance of the sort of wrongful reticence of which we complain; taken, without selection, as one of the first which presents itself to our recollection, from a perusal of the book. The occasion is that of the discussions in parliament preceding the memorable bill of Mr. Pitt, which in fact transferred the government of India from the Court of Directors to the ministry. The affairs of the Company at that time underwent a stricter scrutiny than they had before sustained; and more light was allowed to escape among the people,-in particular, more information of circumstances that were unfavourable in the situation and actions of the Company, -by means of the different orators in parliament, and the respective views which it was their interest to uphold, than the nation had previously been accustomed to receive. If Mr. Macpherson chose to give any account of what was then urged

in parliament, especially with respect to the material facts which were adduced, he should have reported with equal fidelity all that was alleged to shew the defects or the advantages of the East-India-Company; not have slurred over the one with general expressions importing its little value and the distrust to which it was open from the motives of those by whom it was uttered, while he brought forwards the facts alleged in favour of the Company in full particularity, and in such a shape as was likely to produce erroneous conclusions. . By some of the members,' says he, the Company were represented as merciless tyrants in India; and bankrupts at home, who, though unable to pay the sums owing for customs, and seeking to borrow money for answering the bills drawn by their squandering servants in India, were proposing to make so enormous a dividend as eight per cent?' This is all the notice which Mr. Macpherson takes of such facts as the following; that the Company had, in the course of the last year, applied to parliament for leave to borrow 500,000l., and afterward for a farther aid of 300,000l. in Exchequer-bills, and for the remission of the payment of customs to the amount of nearly a million; (that is to say, men labouring under an incapacity of meeting the demands of a single year, to the extent of nearly two millions ;) and that, although for the purpose of checking demands from India they had been restricted from the acceptance of bills to a larger amount than 300,000l. in one year, without the permission of the Lords of the Treasury, bills had actually been drawn on them in Bengal to the amount of nearly two millions beyond that limit. The decision of the case was exceedingly difficult; because, if the bills were protested and sent back to India, the consequences must be fatal to the Company's credit; and, if they were accepted, the public must pay them, since the Company, without receiving the money in some shape from the public, were confessedly unable. At the same time, it was found that the debts of the Company amounted to about eleven millions, without any means for payment whatsover, beyond 3,200,000l. of their capital fund lent to government, and their stock of goods on hand; or, rather, the last without the first, because the first would not be withdrawn. Of all this, not a word is spoken in the history of Mr. Macpherson: but, instead of it, we find this passage:

The advocates for the Company supported their arguments and assertions by the accounts before the House, which shewed, that the sums paid to the revenue for customs and excise upon the Company's trade during the last fifteen years amounted to 19,889,6731., besides the large sums paid as participation of the territorial revenue, and the magnificent present of three ships of the line and six thousand seamen

for

for the navy; whereas the Company had suffered losses in consequence of the late war to the extent of 3,856,6661., over and above the cost of the tea sent to America, and the freight of the vessels employed to carry it; and during all these fifteen years the total of their envied dividends amounted to the comparatively insignificant sum of 3,788,6441.'

Such is the information which we receive from Mr. Macpherson, respecting the financial state of the Company at the memorable era to which we allude; and, when we compare the opinions which these statements are calculated and evidently intended to produce, with the actual state of the Company's affairs, it will sufficiently appear how little as an historical guide Mr. Macpherson is intitled to be trusted. Let us examine the import of the passages which we have inserted. In the first, the author puts the words enormous dividend at eight per cent.' in italics, as if such an expression bore absurdity on the face of it. We venture to think, however, that any mercantile house which, without profits to divide, and with an incapacity to meet the current demands of the year, borrows money to make a dividend, that is, a division of profits to the partners when it is not profit which they are dividing, but the money of their creditors, - does make an enormous dividend' when it distributes 8 per cent. ; and that every principle of honesty and decency would counsel them to make no dividend. Nearly twenty millions had been paid to government in fifteen years as taxes on the Company's trade. Is it possible that all the persons, who perseveringly enumerate this sort of item on the Company's side of the account, are really so ignorant as to misunderstand the import of the facts which they adduce? Who paid these taxes? Who pays all taxes on goods? The people who consume them. It was the people of England who paid the taxes of which Mr. Macpherson makes boastful mention. His mode of arguing, and that of others whom he resembles, is admirable! The people of England paid twenty millions of taxes to the government; therefore, the East-India-Company's monopoly is of the highest national advantage!

6

Mr. Macpherson speaks of large sums paid in participation of the territorial revenue:' but he takes care not to specify them, and for a very good reason. The Company had indeed engaged to pay considerable sums in consideration of being allowed to appropriate the revenues of large countries subject to the crown, but it had paid very little; and the public stood defrauded to the amount of the difference between the sums which had been, and the sums which ought to have been paid.

The Company had made a certain magnificent present; and why? What is the character which belongs to the man who REV. FEB. 1815.

L

gives

gives magnificent presents when he is not able to pay his debts? The object for which the present mentioned by Mr. Macpherson was made is sufficiently obvious; it was a purpose of deceit. The character of the Company had become very unpopular in the nation, and some interference in its concerns was urgently demanded at the hand of the legislature: the present, therefore, was intended to work an impression in its favour: to act as a bribe-a corruptive bribe; to make the people satisfied with the Company, without information, without inquiry, without knowing whether it deserved to be reprobated or admired. The Company had suffered losses by the war, and by sending tea to America; and how do other mercantile parties act, when they suffer losses by their adventures? They sustain them, if they are able: if not, they are bankrupt, and the concern is broken up. Just so would it have been with the East-India-Company, had a clear comprehension of the nation's interests presided over the policy by which that body has been governed. What conceivable ground existed in reason to prove that they, rather than others, whatever their inability, should be still upheld, should have an unlimited claim on the public purse, and not be allowed to feel like others the effects of their own ill management or ill fortune?

We have on former occasions so fully shewn the want of solidity and truth in the arguments adduced by the Company and its advocates, in behalf of its monopolizing propensities, that we shall not in this place enter into any examination of the reasonings of Mr. Macpherson; which are manufactured of the usual old materials, without the smallest novelty in the manner of the fabrication or in the fabricated stuff. If any reader of Mr. Macpherson's History should feel himself in danger of being seduced by the author's arguments, he will probably find relief from his difficulties by inspecting the articles in which we endeavoured to answer the representations of the Company, at the time when the question of renewing its charter was last agitated in parliament.*

The resolution of the Minister, at that period, to lay open the monopoly was a subject of some surprize, the nation not being yet so fully acquainted with the merits of the case as to call with any considerable strength for the right line of policy; and it could not be doubted that it was his interest to strengthen the Company at the expence of the nation, because that strength was an instrument in his own hands. The steadiness, therefore, with which he adhered to his resolution of dissolving the monopoly which they had so long enjoyed was really an effort

*See M. R. Vol. Ixiv. N. S. pp. 243. 337. and lxx. pp. 20. 410.

of

of ministerial virtue, of which a parallel cannot often be expected to occur: it was a very considerable sacrifice of private interest to public good. Aware, however, of the long practised arts of the Company, we endeavoured to warn both the Ministry and the nation against being deluded with a mere appearance; with a relaxation of the monopoly which would continue effectually to exclude the nation from the benefits of the trade; with a freedom so open to the imposition of shackles by the Company, that they would be able to render it totally impotent. The consequence has been as foresight taught us to apprehend. The admission of the British merchants to a great branch of the British trade was clogged with conditions and restrictions, in the very act by which it was created; and other acts have since been added which have deprived it of all power. The statute to which we more particularly allude related to the Indian' sugars; in obtaining which, the efforts of the West-Indiamerchants and of the East-India-Company were combined: the interests of both being served by it, and those of the nation being sacrificed. To enable the merchants to trade with the greatest national advantage, it is necessary that they should have every facility for the saving of expence; and for this purpose, in the case of long voyages, when the cost of freight amounts to a great part of the price at which the commodities can be ultimately sold, peculiar value is attached to that assortment of cargoes which enables every part of the ship to be turned to profitable account.. What was the operation of the law which, since the last renewal of the Company's charter, was passed, so much with the approbation of the Company, for prohibiting the importation of East-India-sugars into England? This effect, together with that of other conditions previously established, was to deprive the merchants of the carriage of all heavy articles with which, in the way of ballast, the ships might have been profitably stowed, and thus to render useless a large portion of every ship: consequently, to enhance the expence of carriage on every article conveyed; and hence to reduce, if not to destroy, the power of trading with advantage. Such effects were very desirable to the West-India-planters, and to the East-India-Company: for to the former was preserved the monopoly of the sugar-market at home and to the latter the monopoly of the market of East-India-produce. Had British merchants been allowed to bring sugar, in lieu of ballast, from the East-Indies, they could have sold it cheap to the people of England; who would thus have enjoyed one of the most important articles which they consume, with much greater facility, and in much greater abundance. On the other hand, by prohibiting British merchants from importing sugar

L 2

cheap