Thus, then, any man who looks but a little beyond the objects which lie accidentally before his eyes, may see, that the measure now suggested by Government, instead of being a wild and airy speculation, a theoretical innovation, a new, untried, and dangerous experiment, on which we have no ground to reason from experience (as it has been ignorantly and falsely asserted), is nothing more than reverting to an ancient principle, involved in the Company's applauded Charter of the 10th of William the Third, and to the practice of our forefathers in the brightest period of our domestic history; a period, in which the British Constitution received its last perfection, and from which the present power and greatness of the British Empire, in the East and in the West, dates its origin.
Having sufficiently proved and established this great fact, let us next inquire, what history reveals to us, of the consequences of that import trade to the out-ports, that can tend, in any degree, to justify, or give support to, the Company, in determining to resort to an alternative which, they acknowledge, will subvert the system of Indian Government (and thereby shake the Constitution at home), rather than renew the measure of a regulated trade to the out-ports.
We have not to deduce these consequences from abstract hypothesis, but from historical testimony; let us, then, observe what that testimony unfolds. No evil, of any kind whatever, resulted to the incorporated, or Joint Stock Company, from the privilege enjoyed by the out ports. On the contrary, that Joint Stock Company, issuing out of the General Society of Merchants (which, as has been above stated, soon became the English East India Company), rose above all their competitors, notwithstanding the power of importing, without limitation, to any of the ports of the kingdom; and such was the rapidity of their progress, that they overcame the former, or London Company; they obtained a surrender of all their rights to St. Helena, Bombay, and all their other islands and settlements in India; they at length received that ancient Company into their own body; and finally became the United East India Company of the present day. And so little did the competition and free import of the general merchants tend to obstruct the growth of the United Company, even in the age of its infancy; and so "superior were the advantages they derived from trading with a joint-stock (to use the words of one of the Company's most strenuous champions), that at the time of the union of the two Companies, out of the whole loan of two millions, only 7000l. then remained the property of the separate traders of the General Society; and this sum also was soon absorbed in the United Company[4]." If then the Company, starting originally with only a joint stock, against a competition in the out-ports of the kingdom, with a power to import to those out-ports, outstripped and overcame all their competitors; what can they seriously apprehend from a renewal of the same experiment, in the present momentum of their power, and when they are able to unite with their joint-stock, the whole of the revenues of their present empire in the East?
But it may be asked, if no better success is likely to attend the commercial speculations of the out-ports, why is so strong an effort made, to admit them to a share in the India trade? The answer is obvious. When Mr. Dundas, in the year 1800, so forcibly expressed his opinion against any such admission, he did not ground that opinion upon a question of ports, but of commercial capital. He considered the capital of the Company as sufficient for all the advantage which the Public, in the aggregate, could derive from the India Trade; and he maintained, that the aggregate interest of the Public would suffer from any measure, tending "to divert any larger proportion of the commercial capital of the country from a more advantageous and more profitable use." But the circumstances of the world are become materially altered, since the period of 1800. The commercial capital, of which Mr. Dundas then reasoned, is deprived of that advantageous and profitable employment which his argument supposed, and is therefore without application or direction; from whence it has resulted, that the operation of commerce is interrupted, and its activity suspended. The allowing that capital to be partially directed to the markets of India, would therefore, under present circumstances, have the great national advantage, of recovering the activity and spirit of commerce, and of encouraging an extensive public interest which is at present disappointed, if not dormant; and, whenever a more prosperous state of things should return, the capital so engaged for a time, would, from the nature of commerce, unquestionably recall itself, and seek again a more profitable market, if any such should open. In the mean time, the East India Company, adding to their joint-stock all the revenues of India, need hardly know, because they could not feel, that they had any competitors in the markets of India. And, as the Executive Government was able to guard the out-ports against smuggling in the period of the infancy of the Company, they might and ought to feel a perfect confidence, that the same authority can guard them equally now, in the present period of their maturity.
Thus, since history renders it indisputable, that an import trade from India to the out-ports of the kingdom has been heretofore exercised under Acts of Parliament, and that it may be perfectly compatible with the highest prosperity of the East India Company; since the Executive Government can guard it against smuggling at the present day, as well as in the reigns of King William and Queen Anne; and since a great and urgent national interest reasonably demands it, both from Parliament and the Company; the present moment furnishes a most fit occasion for the Company to consider, Mr. Dundas's solemn call upon "their wisdom, policy, and liberality," made by him to them in the year 1800; and also, his weighty admonition, that "if any thing can endanger their monopoly, it is AN UNNECESSARY ADHERENCE TO POINTS NOT ESSENTIAL TO THEIR EXISTENCE."
It has been called illiberal, to question the motives of the Directors, in refusing their consent to an import trade to the out-ports. But, with the facts of history, which have been here produced, staring us and them in the face, it would be impossible not to question those motives. No man can entertain a higher respect for the East India Company, as a body politic and corporate, or contemplate with higher admiration the distinguished career which it has run, than Gracchus; but, at the same time, no one is better persuaded of the operation of policy, in a body circumstanced as they are. And it is more especially necessary to watch that policy, and to be free to interpret political motives, at the present crisis, because, at the eve of the expiration of the Company's last Charter, in 1793, certain rights were anxiously alleged on their behalf, in a work entitled, "A Short History of the East India Company, &c." rights absolutely unmaintainable, and utterly incompatible with the sovereignty of the Empire, and the freedom of the Constitution; and the allegations then made, appear now to assume the form of a practical assertion. To those alleged rights, therefore, it will be advisable early to call the attention of Parliament and of the nation.
GRACCHUS.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] A Short History of the East India Company.