pacity of the East India Company, that Doctor Smith should have pronounced the unfitness of the Court of Directors and the Court of Proprietors, in every respect, to govern, or even to share in the government of, a great empire:-relying on this theory, he proceeded a step farther, and pronounced, in 1784, the immediate ruin and bankruptcy of the Company, whose tottering finances, he said, were upheld only by the temporary relief of government. Since that time his disciples have repeated the same thing a hundred times over; yet, in spite of their conclusions, legitimately resulting, as they contended, from true economical premises, it has, provokingly enough to them, continued to prosper. The system, therefore, imperfect and anomalous though it be, must have its merits.Mr. Dundas, in proposing it, was aware that it was in opposition to established theories in government and commerce, none of which however, as far as he could discover, were applicable to India. 'No writer,' he observes, on political economy, had supposed a case where an extensive empire was administered by a commercial association, nor had any writer on commercial economy agreed that trade should be shackled by an exclusive privilege; but, in spite of all these fine theories, the machine had moved forwards and produced known and acknowledged advantages, whilst the theoretic systems only supposed advantages.' The history of India for the last thirty years has indeed completely falsified the theory, that a mercantile body is not equal to the government of a large and distant empire. Lord Cornwallis found the system of 1793, with some trifling modifications, sound and good for all practical purposes.' Lord Wellesley had no difficulty in governing India under that system; and he has since declared, in the most public manner, that the basis is the right one on which it is founded, though time and change of circumstances may have rendered some modifications of it necessary. Whatever then may be urged against the anomalous system of Indian commerce and government, by political and commercial theorists, it has met the approbation of practical and experienced men; among whom may be numbered men of the first character for ability and integrity in the nation. Resting then on that practice and that experience, rather than suffering ourselves to be borne away by abstract theories, however plausible, whatever alterations may be deemed expedient, we most cordially join with the chairman and deputy chairman in the hope, that the wisdom of Parliament, and the good sense of the nation in general, will resist those rash and violent innovations upon the system of the Company, which the merchants of different towns, proceeding upon theoretical ideas, and overlooking most material facts, now appear to intend, without any certainty even of extending the commerce of this this country, but to the unavoidable detriment of its political interests abroad, and its financial interests at home.'* 3. This charge in fact embraces the whole of the question at issue between the Company and the commercial and manufacturing part of the British public. It is met, on the part of the Directors, in an able and elaborate manner, by their chairmen,+ whose arguments for preserving their privileges, and objections against the abolition of them, may be comprehended, as far as trade is concerned, under the two heads of Indian exports and Indian imports. Under the first head they state, that no material enlargement, if any enlargement at all, is to be expected in the exports of our manufactures to India;-that, as an object of gain, the Indian trade has gradually ceased to be of importance, either to the Company, or to individuals;-and, that the expectation of advantages, anticipated by sanguine minds, is contradicted by the nature of the Indian people, climate, and productions, as well as by the experience of two centuries, all which the records of Leadenhall-street can and do certify;-that their unceasing endeavours, through the whole of that period, to extend the sale of British products, have met with little success;-that the French, Dutch, and other European nations, have equally failed, in introducing the manufactures of Europe into India;-that this failure has not been owing to their trading in companies, for that the Americans traded largely as individuals, each in his own way, exploring every part of the East; yet that their chief and almost their only article, for the purchase of Indian goods, has been silver;--and that, in fact, since the time of the Romans, silver has been the only marketable commodity, to any great extent, in India. The arguments of the chairman and deputy chairman, with regard to the export trade, are supported by the Lord Mayor and Common Council of the city of London; who resolve to this effect-that the export trade to India would not be increased by opening that country to the private merchant; because the tonnage, allowed by act of parliament to the private trader, during the last six years, amounted to 63,000 tons, (independent of the allowance to the Company's officers,) of which 16,230 tons only were employed; and that of these, 7,000 (being nearly half) consisted in wine and beer; thus leaving no more than 1,500 tons annually for all kinds of stores and British manufactures, exported by the private traders. Hence, it is concluded, that the expectation of a largely extended market of consumption is erroneous and • Printed papers, page 11. + Letter to Mr. Dundas of 13th January, 1809.-Printed Papers, p. 18. VOL. VIII. NO. XVI. R delusivę ; delusive; that new adventurers would only enjoy a share of that which is now carried on; and they finally arrive at ' a result which, without communicating any additional advantages to the country, without invigorating national industry, or rewarding the spirit of commercial enterprize, must split that into parts and fractions, which is now conducted and concentrated as a whole; and terminate, in its transfer from one set of hands to another, with incalculable disadvantages, and perhaps with total ruin.'* It is not the least remarkable feature in the contest, that those very men, who are always the most forward among the Common Councilmen of the city of London, in decrying monopolies, exclusive privileges, undue influence, and in clamouring about the sacrifices which the many are compelled to make for the benefit of the few,' should be, on the present occasion, the most strenuous advocates for the continuance of the Company's monopoly. It seems, indeed, that when an exclusive privilege' puts money in their purses,' it is no bad thing to be one of the few. If the Company is to stand its ground, we trust it will find better advocates than these Common Councilmen of the city of London. The argument, in fact, which is drawn from the nonemployment of the tonnage, allowed by law to the private trader, and on which so much stress is laid, is the weakest of all possible arguments, as we shall presently endeavour to shew. We deny positively that it proves in the smallest degree, much less satisfactorily proves,' as the merchants of London concerned in the export trade to India and China (who also meet and petition) would have us believe, that the India market is not extensive in its demand, and already supplied, frequently to the great loss and serious injury of those who have engaged in such private export trade.' It will not be necessary for us to enter into the detail of the arguments brought forward by the Company and its avowed advocates, in order to try generally their validity. We shall assume, in the first place, as a fact, that no experiment has yet been fairly made, either as to the extent or the profits of an export trade from Europe to India. From the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope down to the present time, all the nations of Europe (with very few exceptions) have traded to India in joint-stock companies.Individual merchants were never admitted to participate in the trade, but under disadvantageous conditions or unfavourable circumstances. Thus, by the charter of Elizabeth, each proprietor was authorized to carry on a trade on his individual share; but at that time it was next to impossible that individual adventurers * Resolutions of the Lord Mayor and Common Council of the city of London. could could succeed, the English being strangers in the eastern world, feeling and fighting their way against their more powerful and better informed rivals, the Dutch and Portugueze. The nefarious conduct of these nations soon pointed out the necessity of the individual adventurers forming a joint-stock, and sending out their ships well armed in fleets. Again, when King Charles I. in 1655, granted licences to certain merchants to send their ships to the East Indies, the failure was not owing to the want of a market' nor to 'the want of profit;' but, plundered, captured, or destroyed, as they were by the Dutch wherever met with, this licensed trade, which was moreover dearly paid for, was soon abandoned; and those who had embarked in it reduced to beggary. The same thing happened when Oliver Cromwell threw open the trade; but neither in this instance was the failure occasioned, because 'goods were enhanced in cost in India, the selling price lowered at home and the market overstocked,' but because those who ventured upon it, had the two powerful and inveterate enemies above-mentioned to contend with in every part of the eastern sea; and, on shore, were subject to the caprice, the extortion, and the treachery of the native powers. There was at that time no settled government in India; every province was exposed to the pillage of the chief and his marauders of the neighbouring province. The delegates of the Mogul at the sea-ports acknowledged no authority but their own will; and the merchant had no security for the payment or the safety of his property when once landed. The case, at present, is totally different, when almost every port on the extensive coasts of the peninsula and every island of the Indian ocean are under the protection of the British flag; and when there is not an enemy by sea to interrupt the navigation even of single ships. But the Romans, it seems, and, since their time, the Americans, have found almost the only marketable commodity in India to be silver. That the Romans had little else to carry except silver, and, if they had, that they would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to carry other heavy or cumbrous articles over a long, dry, and dreary desert, we shall not stop to prove but that the Americans having carried out little else than silver, affords any proof that there is no demand for the manufactures of Europe, in the markets of India, we are by no means prepared to allow. ---The Americans, having no manufactures of their own, but abundance of raw products marketable in Europe, and in other places not far removed from their route to India, found their advantage in exchanging those products for silver; because silver, thus purchased at first cost, in exchange for raw materials, was cheaper than manufactures on which they must pay a profit; and because silver is always sure of an immediate market in every part of India, and is in China indispensable, for the purchase of a return cargo; whilst the delay which might be occasioned by bringing produce and manufactures to a market perhaps already overstocked, and the necessity, in that case, of disposing of them at a reduced price, or waiting till the excess of stock in the market should abate, would be fatal to the success of the adventure. We see therefore, without any surprise, that the exports of all America in manufactures and produce to every part of British India, never exceeded £112,000 in one year; whilst the amount of bullion, carried by her, on an average of six years, was at the rate of £757,277 a year, being short only of the annual amount of bullion exported by the East India Company, £65,911. If the example of the Americans proves nothing as to the extent of exports, or of the profits upon them, it proves at least that the Indian trade can be successfully carried on by the individuals of a nation having no manufactures nor precious metals of her own. It is farther proved, by the eagerness with which America stipulated for, and obtained, free admission to the several ports of British India, by the treaty of 1794, that she was not insensible to the advantages of the Indian trade. She well knew, as the event has fully proved, that, by navigating more cheaply and more expeditiously than the East India Company, by being unfettered with cumbrous establishments, and by having admission to many parts of the European continent, to the ports of South America, and every part of the Mediterranean, whilst every bale of muslin taken on board an English East Indiaman must first pass up the Thames, her merchants could afford to undersell ours in every foreign market: whereas if the British merchant were gradually admitted to the Indian trade, it can scarcely be doubted that, by a reduced rate of freight, economy of management, and celerity of voyage, he would be able to meet the Americans on equal terms in all the foreign markets. And if this be so, the prohibition is not only a grievance --it is a manifest injustice and a national reproach, that every foreigner, in amity with Great Britain, should be permitted to carry on an unlimited commerce with every part of India, while, to Englishmen alone, all that lies beyond the Cape of Good Hope is to remain a forbidden land. Will it be deemed a sufficient ground, we would ask, for prohibiting the British merchant from making the experiment, to urge, that the experience of two centuries' has shewn, that the expectation of advantages anticipated by sanguine minds' will be disappointed? At any rate, let the experiment be made; let the merchants have practical proof; for nothing short of it, we are well assured, will satisfy their minds. Disappointed, no doubt, will all those be who, like the merchants of Sheffield, arefully persuaded' that an open trade to India would enable us 'to |