mination which the importance of so great a stake would naturally inspire. But, when we compare the real measure in question with the menacing character which is thus attempted to be attached to it, we at once perceive something so extravagantly hyperbolical, something so disproportionate, that it at once fixes the judgment; and forces upon it a suspicion, that there is more of policy and design, than of truth and sincerity in the assertion. That objections to the measure might arise, capable of distinct statement and exposition, is a thing conceivable; and these being stated, it would be a subject for consideration, how far they were removable. But to assert, in a round period, that the safety of the empire in Europe and Asia is fundamentally affected in the requisition, that a ship proceeding from Liverpool or Bristol to India, might return from India to Liver ́pool or Bristol, instead of to the port of London, is calculated rather to shake, than to establish, confidence in those who make the assertion. Yet this is the question which the country is now called upon to consider, as one tending to convulse the British Constitution. Surely, if the foundations of the empire in both hemispheres have nothing more to threaten them, than whether the out-port shipping shall carry their cargoes home to their respective ports, or to repair to the dock-yards in the port of London, the most timid politician may dismiss his alarms and resume his confidence. When the East India Company, by conceding a regulated Export Trade, have at once demonstrated the absurdity of all the predictions which foretold, in that Trade, the overthrow of the Indian Empire; we may confidently believe, that the Import Trade will prove as little destructive, and that its danger will be altogether as chimerical, as the former.

Whether the Court of Directors endeavour to fix that menacing character upon the proposed Import Trade, as a bar against any further requisition, is a question which will naturally occur to any dispassionate person, who is not immediately and personally interested in the conditions of the Charter; and he will be strongly inclined to the affirmative in that question, when he finds, that the reason which they have alleged for their resistance, is their apprehension of the increased activity which the practice of smuggling would acquire, from the free return of

the out-port ships from India to their respective ports. It is not a little extraordinary, that they should so strenuously urge this argument against those persons, who, while they propose the measure, are themselves responsible for the good management and protection of the revenue; and who must therefore be supposed to feel the necessity of providing means and regulations, adapted to the measure which they propose. The ministers of the crown have not failed to inform the Court of Directors, that, in consequence of the communications which they have had with the commissioners of the customs and excise upon the subject, they find that the Directors have greatly over-rated the danger which they profess to entertain; and they acquaint them, that new regulations will be provided to meet the new occasion; and that the out-port ships and cargoes will be subject to forfeiture upon the discovery of any illicit articles on board. Yet the Court of Directors still persist in declaring, that the hazard of smuggling is the reason why they will not grant to the out-ports an import trade; and this, through a fear of compromising "the safety of the British empire in India, and the British constitution at home."

A calm and temperate observer, who scrupulously weighs the force and merits of this reasoning, will naturally be forced into so much scepticism as to doubt, whether there may not he some other reasons, besides the safety of the empire, which may induce the East India Company to stand so firm for the condition of bringing all the import Indian trade into the Port of London? Whether there may not be some reasons, of a narrower sphere than those of the interests of the empire? In searching for such reasons, it will occur to him, that the Port of London is the seat of the Company's immediate and separate interests; and he will shrewdly suspect, that those interests are the real, while those of the empire are made the ostensible, motive for so vigorous a resistance. When he reflects, that it is proposed to leave the Company in the undisturbed possession of all the power of Government over the Indian Empire, which they have hitherto enjoyed; that they are to remain possessed, as heretofore, of the exclusive trade to China, from whence four-fifths of their commercial profit is derived; that they themselves have virtually ad

mitted the falsity of the theoretical mischiefs, foretold as the certain results of an out-port trade, by having agreed to concede that trade, to the extent required by Government; that they equally allow an import trade for the merchants of the out-ports; but make their resistance upon the single point, that the import trade should be all brought together into their own warehouses, and should be disposed of in their own sales in Leadenhall-street; when he combines all these considerations, he will think that he plainly discovers, that the interests of the empire at large are not quite so much involved in the question as they proclaim; and that, if any interests are more pressingly calculated than others, it must be their own, and not the Public's. If their interests are to be affected by the measure, let them fairly state it, and show the extent; but let them not endeavour to defend them covertly, under an artful and factious allegation of the ruin of the British Constitution. And if they really do apprehend that the constitution would be endangered, let them not hazard such consequences by their own proceedings. Let them not come forward as advocates for the preservation of the empire, if their rhetoric is to sink into a threat, of "shutting up the great shop of the India House."

It may be well to call to the recollection of the East India Company, that they owe their present state to an assertion of those very rights to open trade, which have now been brought forward; for, when the first, or London East India Company had experienced certain disappointments and failures, various adventurers came forward with claims similar to those which have been alleged by the merchants of the present day, and obtained an incorporation, to the prejudice of the old Company; and although the old, or London East India Company, afterwards effected a union with the new, or English East India Company, and with them gave origin to the present Company, yet the UNITED EAST INDIA COMPANY should not forget, how much the activity of the Indian trade was stimulated by the assertion of the rights of their predecessors, to participate in the trade which had been granted exclusively to a former Company.

GRACCHUS,

LETTER II..

Wednesday, January 15, 1813.

IT T is a distinguishing character appertaining to Britons, to express forcibly their feelings, whenever they think they discover any disposition to encroach upon their rights. It is not therefore to be wondered at, that the communication of the papers, on the subject of the East India Company's Charter, which was made by the Directors to the Proprietors, on the 5th instant, should have produced the effect which was then manifested; of an almost unanimous disposition, to support the Directors in their resistance of a measure, which, at the time, was regarded as an invasion, on the part of the Government, of the established rights of the East India Company.

But now that the momentary ebullition of that spirit has had time to subside, and to give place to cool and sober reflection, it may not be unacceptable to the Proprietors at large to look calmly and attentively into the subject; and to examine its bearings on their own substantial interests.

It must be manifest to every man, who will only refer to the accounts which have been published in the reports of the select committee of the House of Commons, that, from the magnitude of the Company's debt, it would be impossible to calculate the time at which the proprietors could contemplate any augmentation of their present dividends of 10 per cent.; even though the Charter, instead of being within one year of its expiration, had an extended period of twenty years to operate.

It is equally manifest, from the correspondence of the Court of Directors with Government, that, in agreeing to the proposition of opening the export trade to the out-ports of the United Kingdom, they were free from any apprehension, that the continuance

of the present dividend could be endangered by their conceding that point. And, therefore, although the proprietors were precluded from entertaining any reasonable expectation of an increase to their dividends, they were perfectly warranted to consider the continuance of that which they now receive, as free from any hazard, in consequence of the extension proposed to be granted to the export-trade.

Whether they may remain in the same confidence, under all existing circumstances, is a question which the proprietors are now earnestly solicited to examine. The point at issue (if I may apply that expression to a case, in which the Company are upon the disadvantageous ground of petitioning for the renewal of a privilege, now about to expire) is, whether the ships which shall be permitted to clear out from the out-ports of the United Kingdom, ought to be allowed to return to any given description of those ports, or whether they should all be compelled to enter at the Port of London? And upon this point is made to hinge a question, which may affect (not the British Empire and Constitution, but) the main interest of the proprietors, namely, their dividends. For no man can be so inconsiderately sanguine as to suppose, that the Company, under the present pressure of their pecuniary embarrassments, (whatever may have been the causes from whence they have arisen ;) embarrassments proceeding from a debt, in India and in England, of more than forty-two millions; nearly four millions of which are in accepted bills on England, which will shortly become due, and for the payment of which there are not funds at the India House; no man can be so inconsiderately sanguine as to suppose, that the dividend may not become a little precarious, under such circumstances. It must be evident to the most superficial observer, that the credit of the Company with the public can only be sustained by the prompt and liberal aid of Parliament; and it will hardly be maintained, that it is a propitious mode of soliciting that aid, to connect with the solicitation an avowed determination to oppose a measure, hich Government represent it to be their duty to recommend to Parliament, for the general benefit of the community; a measure, founded on, and growing out of, the principle of the Charter of 1793, which first opened the private trade between India and this country; the