in this quarter of Russia: nor is the fact ascertained, with any accuracy, by the natives of Astrachan. ' " Having thus seen that the natives of India are in no respect averse to engage in commercial dealings with strangers, and that no prejudices exist among them of a nature to prevent them from using our manufactures; we cannot but be forcibly struck with the reflection that no systematic plan has ever been adopted by the East India Company, to attract the attention of the Hindoos to the various articles of our home manufacture, or to stimulate their speculation in the traffic of them. Whereas in Europe, the Company have always found it necessary, for the disposal of their Indian Imports, to take active measures for drawing the attention of the nations of the European Continent to their sales in London. The Directors, in their letter to Lord Buckinghamshire, under date of the 15th of April, 1812, (adverting to their sales in Europe,) observe, "That the Foreign Buyers repose confidence in the regularity and publicity with which the Company's sales are conducted; that the particulars of their cargoes are published immediately on the arrival of the ships, and distributed all over the Continent. That notices of the quantities to be sold, and periods of sale, are also published for general distribution; and that the sales of each description of goods are made at stated periods, twice in the year." No measure of this nature has ever been projected for India; and yet, the predilection of the natives of India, both Hindoo and Mahomedan, for public shows, scenes of general resort, and exhibitions of every kind, is so well known, that we may confidently affirm, that nothing could have a surer tendency to draw them together, than a display at periodical fairs of our various manufactures. Fairs of this kind, for the sale of their home manufactures, have been held from time immemorial, in every part of India. The Company therefore needed only to engraft, upon an established usage of the Hindoos, a regular plan of periodical fairs; and, by thus adopting in India a course analogous to that which they have found it necessary to employ in Europe, they might generally have arrived at giving to Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, attractions of curiosity, and mercantile interest, which would most probably 1 Forster's Travels, p. 259. have drawn to those settlements the wealthy natives from every part of the East; and have rendered the capital cities of British India, what Amsterdam, Frankfort and Leipsic have long been is Europe, the resorts of all descriptions of people, and the repositories of every European article of use and luxury. From these different centres of commerce, the markets of the interior of India, and especially those held at the scenes of religious assembly, might be furnished with supplies, and under the fostering encouragement of a wise and provident Government, the intelligence and enterprise of the natives of India might be called into action, and be stimulated, by a powerful motive, to exert in their own country those commercial talents that have obtained for them the encouragements, which, upon the unimpeachable testimony of Mr. Forster, they have long received in Persia, and in parts of Russia. The advantage of collecting together, at stated periods and in established points, the productions of human industry and ingenuity, has been so universally felt by all nations; that there is scarcely a country, advanced to any degree of civilization, in which the practice has not prevailed. To effect this object, with a view to the extension of our export trade in India, active encouragement is alone requisite; but, in order to give it stability, native agency must be called forth into action. The supplies which (as was mentioned on a former occasion) were found at Poonah, were obtained from that source alone. The Parsee merchants at Bombay, are the principal agents of the Commanders and Officers of the Company's ships; such parts of their investments as are not disposed of among the European population, are purchased and circulated in the interior, by the Parsees. The small supplies of European manufactures, which find their way into the principal cities of the Deccan, proceed from this source, but there is reason to believe, that the articles which arrive at those places are too frequently of an inferior sort, or such as have sustained damage in the transit from Europe. To give perfection to the great object here sketched out, it will be indispensably necessary that the local authorities in India, should direct their most serious attention to this subject. As, our Indian empire is our only security for our Indian trade, so our Indian trade must be rendered an object of vigilant concern to those who administer the Government of that empire. From the multiplicity and importance of their other avocations, that trade has not hitherto received all the consideration to which its high value is entitled; but, whenever an adequate regard shall be paid to it, it will become a duty of the Government to take active and effectual steps, for drawing the attention of the natives to our exported commodities, and for promoting the dispersion of those commodities, within the sphere of their influence or power. We now discern one operative cause of the comparatively small demand for, and consumption of, our European articles, in the Indian empire; a cause, however, which it is within our capacity to control or to remove. And, after what has been summarily exposed, in this and in the preceding communication, it can be no difficult point to determine, whether this cause, or the alleged prejudices of the Hindoos, have most contributed to limit the extent of our Export trade to India. LETTER X. GRACCHUS. THE RIGHTS AND PRETENSIONS OF THÊ EAST INDIA COMPANY. Monday, March 8, 1813. It is T is now become a matter of the most solemn importance, that the public attention should be called to a clear and deliberate survey of THE RIGHTS and PRETENSIONS of the East India Company; and that the judgment of Parliament should be directed to, and its sense declared upon, the subject of those pretensions, which have generated A NEW CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION, and are now carried to a height to affect the supreme Sovereignty of the State. To discuss those rights and pretensions at large, would demand a far more extended space than the present occasion can supply; but it would be altogether unnecessary to enter into a more enlarged discussion; because, in order to obtain the end here proposed, of drawing and fixing the attention of Parliament and the Public upon the subject, little more is required, than to bring those several rights and pretensions into one compressed and distinct point of view; and to leave it to the legislative wisdom to determine finally upon their validity. The rights of the East India Company, are usually distinguished into their temporary rights, and their perpetual or permanent rights 1. The temporary rights of the Company are: 1. A right to the exclusive trade with all the countries lying eastward from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan. This right is a lease of all the public right to the trade of those parts of the world; which lease has been renewed to the Company, from time to time, in consideration of a varying premium to be paid by them to the public. 2. A right to administer the government and revenue of all the territories in India acquired by them during their term in the exclusive trade. This is a right delegated from the Crown, with the assent of Parliament; and which can be possessed by the Company no longer, than the authority from which it emanates has, or shall prescribe. Upon the expiration of these temporary rights, which determine, as the law at present stands, in the ensuing year, 1814, the East India Company will remain in possession of whatever permanent rights shall be found to pertain to them. II. The perpetual, or more properly, the permanent rights of the Company, must be considered under two distinct heads, viz. admitted and alleged. § 1. The admitted permanent rights are, 1. To be a Body Politic and Corporate, with perpetual succession. This right has been confirmed by various succeeding charters and statutes. But there are some observations, which it is important to make upon this subject. The first charter, granted by Queen Elizabeth, in 1601, to the first or London East India Company, created both its corporate capacity and its exclusive privilege, to VOL. I. Pam. No. II. 2 R continue for a term of fifteen years; but it provided, that, in case it should not prove beneficial to the public, the whole of the grant might at any time be determined, upon two years notice given to the Company. The succeeding charters of James I. Charles II. James II. and William and Mary, conferred, in the same manner, both the corporate capacity and the exclusive privilege; and though they did not, like the former, fix a term for their duration, yet they rendered the whole grant determinable upon three years notice. No provision is introduced into any of these charters, to make the corporate capacity outlast the exclusive trade. When the principle of "a more national, general, and extensive trade to India," declared in the charter of the 5th Will. and Mary, had been followed by the measure of creating a general society of merchants, and of erecting a new Company, the advocates for that measure took particular care to show, "That the old Company, in reciting their charters, had forgot to mention the provisos therein, viz. that the respective kings of England, who granted them, reserved a discretionary power to make them void on three years warning." This observation did not apply to their exclusive privilege only, but extended equally to their corporate capacity; both being determinable by the same warning, because both were derived from the same grant, the whole of which grant was made liable to that determination, notwithstanding their corporate capacity was to enjoy "perpetual succession." Hence it is manifest, that the perpetuity conferred by the charter was not perpetuity of exclusive trade, or political power, but of corporate succession. But perpetual succession in a body corporate, does not imply perpetuity of duration, but merely uninterrupted succession of the individuals who compose it; which every corporate body must possess, whatever may be the term of its duration, in order that it may become, and may be able to perform the acts of, a legal person. The statute of 9 and 10, and the charter of 10 William III. which created both the corporate capacity and the exclusive privilege of the New, or English Company, followed the example of the former charter, granted to the Old Company, and rendered the whole grant determinable by the same process. But, in the 10th ! Anderson's Hist. of Commerce (1698), vol. ii. p. 221, fol. |