The Letters of Gracchus on the East India Question

by William Augustus Miles

1. A right to all the ports and territories in India, possessed by the Company, of the same kind and extent as the right by which they hold their freeholds in London.—This right has been solemnly asserted for the Company, by the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Court of Directors, in these words:—"The Company are AS MUCH owners of THE CHIEF SEATS of European trade in the Indian Empire, as they are of their freeholds in London[20]." This is an open and unreserved declaration of the East India Company, renewing and asserting the preceding allegations made on their behalf at the expiration of their last exclusive Charter; and the same allegation is now repeated in their Petition to Parliament, though in terms somewhat more qualified than those which they addressed to the Government; viz. "that no person can have a right, except with the consent of the proprietors of India stock, to use the seats of trade which the stockholders have acquired." But they must bring an oblivion over all the reasons of state and policy by which they exist at all, before they can carry in the face of the nation the proud assertion, that they stand equally circumstanced, in regard of private right, with respect to "the chief seats of European commerce in the Indian Empire," and with respect to "their freeholds in London." They will assuredly be told by Parliament, that they may not exercise the same arbitrary authority over the chief seats of Indian commerce, which they may over their freeholds in London. With regard to their freeholds in London, they may exclude all persons from entering them, they may desert them themselves, or they may let them fall to ruin. But it is NOT SO with regard to the chief seats of Indian commerce; they will find, that they cannot arbitrarily exclude British subjects from those seats, beyond a limited time; that they cannot debar the nation the beneficial use of them; and that they will not be suffered to render them unavailable, or unprofitable. As soon as the India Trade shall be thrown open, the ports of India will necessarily become open; and, if the Company should then search for their private right to close them, they will find, that it is merged in the public right to use them; or, to use the words of Lord Hale, that "their jus privatum is clothed and superinduced with a jus publicum[21]."

2. The last right alleged by the Company at the present crisis, which forms the CLIMAX of their pretensions, and is the key to all their late proceedings, is that of a perpetual union and incorporation with the Supreme Government of the Indian Empire; so that the Indian trade and government must ever continue to be united in them, and cannot now be separated, without endangering "the British Empire in India, and the British Constitution at home." This pretension renders the question of a temporary exclusive trade entirely nugatory, because it is the unqualified assertion of a perpetual one; not to be received any more as a grant from Parliament, as hitherto it has been, but to be extorted from Parliament through fear of the subversion of Parliament. This pretension is founded upon the Company's interpretation of an observation, made by a late eminent Minister to the Managers of the Company's affairs, in the year 1800; viz. that "the Government and the trade of India are now so interwoven together," as to establish an indissoluble "connexion of government and trade." This dictum, is assumed by the Company for an incontestable maxim of State, as applicable to their own Corporation; and for an eternal principle, connecting that Body Corporate with all future Indian Government. This they denominate, "THE SYSTEM, by which the relations between Great Britain and the East Indies are now regulated;" and, in their sanguine hopes of gaining perpetuity for their system, they already congratulate themselves upon their Incorporation into the Sovereignty, as a NEW, and FOURTH ESTATE of the Empire.

It is that maxim, evidently embraced for this construction at the present crisis, that has emboldened the conductors of the Company's concerns to assume so lofty a demeanour towards the King's servants; and to venture to represent the cautious proceedings of Government in a great political question (in which it appears only as a moderator between two conflicting interests), to be an aggression against their indisputable rights. It has been asked in the Court of Proprietors, "whether the Ministers of the present day are become so far exalted above their predecessors, or the Company so newly fallen, that adequate communications should not be made to the latter, of the plans and intentions of the former?" It is neither the one nor the other; but it is, that the Company are become so elated and intoxicated by the ambitious expectation of being incorporated as a perpetual Member of the Supreme Government, that they conceive they have no longer any measures to keep with the Ministers of the Crown.

And can the British people now fail to open their eyes, and to discern the strait to which the ancient crown and realm of England would be reduced, by submitting to acknowledge this new estate in the Empire? Greatly as it would be to be lamented that any thing should disturb the present internal tranquillity of our political system, yet, if such should be the necessary result of a resistance to the ambitious views of the East India Company, it ought to be manfully and cheerfully encountered; rather than admit, by a temporizing concession, a claim which shall bend Parliament to the will of, and degrade the Crown to an alliance with, a Company of its own subjects; which owes its recent existence to the charters of the Crown, and the enactments of Parliament, and yet aspires to seat itself for ever, side by side, by its own supreme Government.

The Company have carried too far their confidence in the constitutional defence by which they hoped to ride in triumph over the Executive Government. Their exorbitant pretensions have bred a new constitutional question, to which the public mind is now turning. In their solicitude to fortify themselves with constitutional jealousies, they have constructed a formidable fortress, which threatens to embarrass the Citadel of the State, and must therefore of necessity awaken its jealousy. A change in the Administration of the Indian Government (should the Company finally provoke such a change), need not necessarily throw the patronage of India into the hands of the Crown; means are to be found, by which that political and constitutional evil may be effectually guarded against. But if, through a precipitate assumption, that no such adequate substitute can be provided for the present system, Parliament should, at this critical moment, unguardedly yield to the demands of the Company, and give its sanction to their claims to a perpetuity of those privileges which they have hitherto been contented to receive with limitation, what difficulties would it not entail upon its own future proceedings? If the corporate sovereignty of the Company is once absolutely engrafted upon the Sovereignty of the State, it cannot be extracted without lacerating the ancient stock, and convulsing the general system.

The Company would have done wisely, if, instead of resting their case upon pretensions erroneous in fact, inadmissible in law, and derogatory of the authority addressed, they had rested it wholly upon their own endeavours to promote the original purpose of their incorporation: namely, the honour of the Crown, and the advantage of the commonwealth. Upon that ground the Company might have stood strong; and all that would then have remained for the consideration of Parliament, would have been a question, how those great interests could, under existing circumstances, be best advanced; either by continuing the present arrangement without alteration, or by modifying it in such particulars, as Parliament in its wisdom might judge to be necessary. But instead of this, they have taken ground upon high pretensions of Right, which must necessarily provoke investigation; and we have discovered, in the foregoing inquiry, how far those pretensions are supported.

The determination of this great question, however, is now reserved for Parliament; and, upon the wisdom of Parliament, the Country may with confidence rely, for a full consideration of all the public rights, commercial as well as political; and likewise, for the final adoption of such an arrangement for the government and trade of India, as shall appear to be the best calculated to advance the real interests, and to promote the general prosperity of the Empire, both in the East and West.

GRACCHUS.