The Present State of the British Interest in India / With a Plan for Establishing a Regular System of Government in That Country

by Anonymous

With respect to the present state of our commerce with those countries, it is not enquired, and therefore not known, whether the Company exports the stipulated sum of British commodities or not; and it is still less known, whether the small quantity she hath exported of late is disposed of; or whether it remains in her warehouses abroad, to swell up the account of her stock; thus much however reason tells us, that the inhabitants of Bengal, who cannot procure the necessaries of life, millions having died of want, can but little afford to purchase foreign fopperies or superfluities. Nevertheless we have seen large cargoes of Indian manufactures imported this very year; but we are not to suppose, that these cargoes are the produce of willing industry; they are procured by force and compulsion; the artisan being held to work under the discipline of task masters, who deprive him of his labour before it is completed, at a price that will not afford him the means of living. Of the many markets that for ages had taken off the manufactures of Bengal, Europe is now the only one remaining; and this one market cannot be supplied without the application of force. How long force might supply the place of willing industry, we shall not pretend to determine; but one year more will discover the united effects of want of artisans, want of money, and Mharrattor incursions.

And thus have we demonstrated the nature and condition of this Bengal government, together with the evils it hath caused to the country governed, not from a recital of disputed facts, but from principles universally understood and admitted. For every one, the least acquainted with the Company’s affairs, must know and will allow that the views, the interests, the powers and opportunities of her deputed government in Bengal are exactly such as we have described them; and upon this one undisputed datum we have built our whole demonstration; the truth and justness of which every man is capable of trying and proving, by the touchstone of his own reason. For reason, without the aid of circumstantial proof, can judge whether the line of conduct which we have assigned to the government of Bengal, is fairly inferred and deduced from its evident and allowed principle of action: and common sense, unassisted by demonstration, will point out the effects that such conduct must operate on the interest of the country governed; and, if we farther advert to the length of time that this country hath been subjected to such operation, we shall nearly guess at its present state and condition.

And we doubt not, that what hath been said will enable every one, who makes use of his own reason and reflection, to form a proper judgment for himself on certain points of this East India business, which have been most grossly misrepresented. For he will thereby discover, that the object, for which the nation hath to apprehend at present, is not the “credit of the Company;” which, had she been restrained within her natural sphere, and her conduct properly inspected by government, could never have been injured; or, if it had, the breach could (in such case) have little more affected the general weal, than the failure of any large trading house; which, so long as the trade remained entire, would have been immediately replaced by another; but he will perceive, that the present bad state of the Company’s credit is only an effect, or consequence, of the ruinous situation of affairs in India; and, of course, that the object of national apprehension is the ruin or loss of that mighty and important branch of national interest, which hath been committed to the charge of the Company, in a manner so complete and implicit, that the name, as well as the interest of the nation, nay the very name of the object itself, hath been sunk and lost in that of the Company: this Company, which is but the temporary farmer, having been, to all intents and purposes, substituted in the stead of not only the sovereign proprietor, but even of the farm itself. And it will farther appear, that the danger which threatens this object is not to be averted by blindly supporting the credit of the Company: but, on the contrary, that the nation will, by affording this blind support, only furnish the means of completing that ruin, which is already so far advanced. To prevent this danger demands measures of a very different nature: and we shall proceed to point out these measures; which, had they been applied in time, would, we humbly conceive, have sufficed to prevent the ruin or loss of this important concern: and which, if matters are not past remedy, may yet serve to restore them.

THE TRUE CAUSES OF EVIL AND ABUSE IN THE GOVERNMENT OF BENGAL, AND THE MEANS TO REMEDY THEM.

It is a common saying that, the cause of an evil being known, the remedy is readily discovered; and, upon the strength of this maxim, several, who think they have hit upon some one cause of evil in the political government of Bengal, have taken upon them to prescribe a remedy; which is pronounced an universal panacea, a salve for every sore: but no sooner have they produced their ware, than the eye hath discovered it to be mere powder of post; or something equally unavailing.

Few of these prescriptions have at all attracted notice; the proposal for protecting the liberty of the subject from the despotism of government, by the institution of native juries, was indeed extremely well calculated to please British speculation; and therefore, like the device of hanging the bell about the cat’s neck, it was highly applauded by those who never adverted to the difference betwixt Britain and Bengal, in point of general constitution of government and disposition of the natives. But, for practice, it must appear a mere chimera to such as consider, on the one hand, that men, who are slaves to their government and its officers in every other capacity, cannot possibly be free in that of jurymen; and that juries, if they are not free and impartial, avail nothing: and, on the other hand, that if the natives should be actually endowed with the real cap of liberty in the jury room, there is danger, nay, there is a certainty, that they would make bold to wear it elsewhere; and then, adieu to the English dominion in Bengal. In few words, the power of the English government, and the freedom of native juries, are two things that cannot possibly exist together in Bengal; the life of the one must unavoidably cause the death of the other: and, however harsh this doctrine may sound in a freeborn English ear, the force and truth of it will immediately strike the politician.

Equally unavailing is that proposal for securing the liberty and property of the subject, from the oppression and extortion of government, by granting to the native a perpetual property in land; without providing him the smallest security for the free possession of its produce; which, so long as government stands on its present footing, is liable to be wrested from him so soon as acquired.

But it would seem, that the reason why these political physicians have been so unlucky in their prescriptions is, that they have proceeded upon false principles; as having mistaken the nature of the malady. For they have either assigned no one certain cause of evil; or else they have traced it no farther than to the persons who have executed the government of those countries, otherwise to the Directors: as if all the evil had proceeded from some particular viciousness in their disposition, as if they had been sinners above all men, or as if no men would have done the wicked deed but they: whereas he who is the least acquainted with human nature will allow, that few, if any men, would have made any better use of their powers and opportunities; nay he will add, that every other government on earth, would act the very part that this Bengal government hath done, provided it held the same views and interests, together with the same powers and opportunities. And, if so, what can be more absurd, than the proposal to remedy the evils and abuses of this government, by sending out Supervisors, with the same or greater powers, and consequently possessing greater opportunities of promoting their own views and interests; which are exactly the same as these of the persons complained of; seeing that, as the same cause of evil which existed in the Governors, would have existed in the Supervisors, these similar causes must have operated similar effects.

Indeed we shall err widely, if we look for the original cause of evil in these Governors: for, on inspecting the preceding description of this Bengal government, we perceive, that their maladministration is itself but an effect, or consequence, naturally flowing from the total want of certain fundamental principles or powers; which, in every other government, serve to restrain the party governing from doing or permitting injury, and impel it to promote the good of the party governed: and as the want of these restraining and impelling powers hath unavoidably produced, the first tyranny, and the latter anarchy, it is plain, that all the evils and abuses in the government of Bengal have sprung from this deficiency. It farther appears, from the same description, that the want of these restraining and impelling powers arises from two different causes; the first being the particular condition and constitution of the sovereign: and the second is there termed the distance of situation, betwixt the sovereign residence and the country governed; tho’ the sequel will evince this latter to be rather a radical defect in the nature of that system, which the Directors have adopted for the government of this distant dominion. That these have been the two original causes of the tyranny and anarchy, and consequently of all the evils and abuses in this Bengal government, including these of the commercial despotism, is sufficiently evident. We shall therefore proceed to point out the means of removing these causes, as the only effectual method of remedying the evils. And as each of the two causes hath contributed its proper share of the evil, and each demands a distinct remedy, we shall consider them separately.

With regard to the condition and constitution of the Company, we have already mentioned the several circumstances that disqualify her for the office of a supreme sovereign; here therefore we shall only recapitulate, or collect them into one point of view. The first defect is, her impotence, or want of power to promote good government in her dominion: and this proceeds from her being, with respect to her deputed government, a meer fellow subject, totally void of supreme legislative and judicial powers; and consequently incapable of inforcing obedience; or of punishing disobedience: and this want of authority and power in the sovereign, we have shown to be a principal cause of despotism in the deputed government. A second defect in the constitution of the Company is her want of inclination, or rather of interest, to discharge the duty of a good sovereign; and this arises from the fluctuating and hourly mutable state of the proprietary, the temporary and short duration of her corporate existence, the still shorter tenor of this sovereignty, and the annual rotation of her executive government; for, in consequence of these several circumstances in her situation, her views are narrow, contracted, and rapacious; the sole aim of all her measures being to make the most of the present moment. The third defect is the mercantile capacity of this sovereign Company; and from this defect alone flow evils sufficient to ruin the interest of the country subjected to her government: for, in consequence of her mercantile capacity, her deputed government acts as a merchant; and, in consequence of her sovereign capacity, all her mercantile servants assume the authority of sovereigns.