But, apart from this combination, the Act of Mr. Pitt, passed in 1784, constituting a Board of Control to superintend the affairs of the Company, had paved the way for many changes. This board consisted of six members of the Privy Council, who were to superintend, check, and control all operations and concerns in any way relating to the civil and military government or the revenues of the territory and possessions of the Company; and the Act further provided that all communications to or from India touching the above matters were to be submitted to this Board of Control, the Directors reserving to themselves power to amend their instructions. A secret committee of three directors was formed, with which the Board of Control might transact any business it did not choose to submit to the Court of Directors, and to whom persons returning from India were required, under severe penalties, to declare the amount of their fortunes; while a tribunal was constituted which had for its sole object the trial of any person accused of misconduct in India, consisting of a judge of each of the three chief law-courts in England, of five peers and seven members of the House of Commons, the last being chosen by lot at the commencement of each session. Although the Directors were left to superintend their shipping and commercial affairs, as they had hitherto done, the Board of Control exercised an indirect influence over their proceedings both at home and in India.
Value of the trade, 1796.
During the three years ending 1796, the value of the Company’s exports of British produce and manufactures fluctuated from 928,783l. to 1,031,262l.; but this increase may be attributed mainly, if not wholly, to the great reductions which the Act of 1784 had effected in the duties on tea, and the vast increase which consequently took place in its consumption.
Charter renewed, with important provisions, from 1796 to 1814.
When, in 1796, the Company’s charter was again renewed, the important provision was made that all his Majesty’s subjects, residing in any part of his European dominions, were to be allowed to export to India any article of the produce or manufacture of the country where they resided, except military stores, ammunition, masts, spars, cordage, pitch, tar, and copper, and the Company’s civil servants in India, as well as the free merchants resident there, were permitted to ship, on their own account and risk, all kinds of Indian goods, except calicoes, dimities, muslins, and other piece goods. But so jealous were the Directors of competition in their commercial operations, that they prevailed on the government to insert various clauses in the new charter whereby neither the merchants of India nor of England generally, nor any of the Company’s servants, were allowed to export or import except in ships belonging to or chartered by the Company; appropriating, however, under various restrictions, three thousand tons of space in their ships for the use of private traders, at the reduced rate, in time of peace, of 5l. outwards, and 15l. homewards, for every ton occupied by them in the Company’s ships, but stipulating that this rate of freight might be increased in time of war by the approbation of the Board of Control.
Restrictions on private traders.
“It might have been,” remarks Mr. M’Culloch,[372] “and indeed was most probably foreseen, that very few British merchants or manufacturers would be inclined to avail themselves of the privilege of sending out goods in the Company’s ships, or of engaging in a trade fettered on all sides by the jealousy of powerful monopolists, and where consequently their superior judgment and economy would have availed almost nothing. As far therefore as they (the English merchants) were concerned, the relaxation was more apparent than real, and did not produce any useful results.” Indeed Lord Melville quotes, from a letter written by the Marquess of Hastings to the Company, dated 21st of March, 1812, the following passage, “It will not be denied that the facilities granted by that Act (the Act of 1796) have not been satisfactory, at least to the merchants of this country or of India. They have been the source of constant dispute, and they have even entailed a heavy expenditure upon the Company without affording to the public any adequate benefit for such a sacrifice.”[373] This privilege was, however, made use of to a considerable extent by private merchants in India, and also by the Company’s servants returning from India, many of whom invested a portion or the whole of their fortunes in the produce of India suited for the English markets.
Notwithstanding the privileges secured by the Act of 1796, and the superintendence of the Board of Control, the finances of the Company again fell into the same unprosperous state in which they had previously been, although accounts of a large surplus revenue to be immediately derived from India were issued from time to time to the public, and various Acts of Parliament were passed for the appropriation of surpluses which never had any existence except in the imagination of the persons who framed them!
East India Company’s shipping, 1808-1815.
The wars in which they had been engaged with the Mahrattas, and other powers in the East, although they had terminated in a vast accession of territory, did not add to the pecuniary resources of the Company, and were consequently disapproved of at home. During 1808 and 1809 they were particularly unfortunate, having lost in those two years four outward-bound and ten homeward-bound ships[374], the cargoes of these vessels, with the advances made to the owners, including 60,729l., the value of one of the ships which belonged to the Company amounting to no less than 1,048,077l. The calamities of the French war had also reached the Company, which suffered by the deficiency in the amount of their sales at home, partly in consequence of a reduced demand for Indian produce and manufactures, but chiefly on account of the convulsed state of Europe, and the interdiction of commercial intercourse with almost every country of the Continent to which previously their goods were exported.