"And we must beg leave to add" (say the Chairman and Depu ty, p. 177), “that whatever rights the merchants may claim, or the nation be pleased to bestow on them, it cannot be equitable to make concessions to them which should destroy the Company who acquired the Indian empire, and who are as much the owners of the chief seats of European trade in that empire, as they are of their freeholds in London."

"If the government of India" (says the President of the Board of Controul, in reply, p. 183) "cannot be carried on with safety to the constitution, except through the intervention of the Company, the propositions of the Court of Directors, whatever they may be, must unconditionally be admitted. It will be for Parliament to determine, whether the nation is, in this respect, without an alternative; or whether, if a change of system should be rendered necessary by the decisions of the East India Company, measures might not be taken for opening the trade, and at the same time providing such an administration of the government of India, as might be found compatible with the interest and security of the British constitution."

Now, Sir, in this conflict of opinion on a matter of vital import to the permanent security of the East India Company, I do not hesitate to declare, that the Directors will be mainly deficient in the duty they owe to the Constituent Body, if they do not openly and candidly state, at the General Court called for the 19th instant, all the arguments they have in reserve to support and confirm their own position, "that the Company are as much the owners of the chief seats of European trade in the Indian empire, as they are of their freeholds in London." Let them prove it to be really so, and they may laugh at "the burning plough-shares" prepared for them by Agricola.

Westminster, 8th January, 1813.

PROBUS.

SIR,

LETTER II.

When your correspondent Gracchus, whose high and threatening tone ill suits the calm and dispassionate inquiry to which the columns of the Morning Post were to be appropriated, entered

See the Morning Post of the 7th instant.

into a disquisition of the permanent and temporary rights of the East India Company, it might have been expected that he would give to the public the entire record, without mutilation. In advocating the weaker cause, he has produced so much only of the truth as would make for his clients, and reasoned thereon, as if, what he had produced, was the whole truth.

"The rights of the East India Company," he says," are two-fold, and have long been distinguished as their permanent rights, and their temporary rights. Those rights are derived to them from distinct charters, granted to them at different times by Parliament. By the former, they were created a perpetual corporate society of merchants trading to India. By the latter, they obtained, for a limited period of time, the exclusive right of trading with India and China, and of executing the powers of government over those parts of the Indian territory, which were acquired either by conquest or by negociation. The charter conveying the latter limited rights is that which will expire in the course of the ensuing year, 1814; on the expiration of which the exclusive trade to the East will be AGAIN opened to the British population at large, and the powers of the India government will lapse in course to the supreme government of the British empire, to be provided for as Parliament in its wisdom may judge it advisable to determine."

Any one unacquainted with the history of the East India Company, would naturally infer from this statement of Gracchus, that the Company had no other permanent right than what resulted from their corporate capacity, as a society of merchants merely trading to India. Yet it is certain that they possess other permanent rights, and of a nature with which it would be extremely dangerous for any administration to interfere, because the Company cannot be, constitutionally, deprived of them. By the charter of King William, and confirmed by the 33d of his present Majesty, the Company possess in perpetuity the right to make settlements to any extent within the limits of their exclusive trade; to build forts; to appoint governors; to erect courts of judicature; to coin money; to raise, train, and muster forces at sea and land; to repel wrongs and injuries; to make reprisals on the invaders or disturbers of their peace; and to continue to trade within the same limits, with a joint stock, for ever. Not one of these rights could be, constitutionally, touched. "The Company are as much the owners of the chief seats of the European trade, in the Indian empire, as they are of their freeholds in London," although their exclusive right of trading, and the power of governing the countries, and appropriating the revenues thereof, should now, or at any time hereafter, lapse to the supreme government of the British Empire.

When had it been opened?

It is not liberal in Gracchus to insinuate that the Directors are influenced in their opposition to his Majesty's government by considerations of self-interest; nor can any thing be more unjustifiable than his assertion, that they are covertly defending such interest, "by an artful and factious allegation of the ruin of the British constitution." I believe them to be actuated by a much nobler principle. I believe they are sincerely impressed with the same conviction, as I am, viz. "That, if the constitution by which the Indian empire is now administered, should be subverted, the excellent system of civil and military service formed under the Company, and maintainable only by such a body, will be broken down; the tranquillity and happiness of the vast population which that empire contains, the interests of the country in Asia, and its constitution at home, will be imminently endangered."

I can assure Gracchus that I am a perfectly independent proprietor of East India Stock, wholly unconnected with the shipping interest at the port of London; and quite indifferent to the smiles or frowns of the honorable gentlemen "behind the bar."

Westminster, 14th January, 1813.

PROBUS

LETTER III.

SIR, It was not until the reign of Elizabeth, that the various attempts of the English merchant to open a trade with India proved successful. In the year 1600, that great Sovereign established the first incorporated society, by the name of the London East India Company. This Company had many difficulties to overcome. They were viewed with an eye of extreme jealousy, in both hemispheres. At home, many efforts were employed to persuade the Crown, and even Parliament itself, to interpose and annul the charter, on the ground that every man had an equal right to trade in the East as well as in the West; while in India the native powers had the strongest mistrust of all Europeans, in consequence of the sanguinary system of conquest and oppression, practised by the Portuguese, in that quarter of the globe.

At length, however, the London Company, by a moderate and just conduct, obtained from certain of the native powers, at a considerable expense, the sanction of a limited trade in different parts of India and of Persia, and of making small settlements for the residence of their factors. Such was the state of things when, in 1693, by the accidental failure of the payment of a small duty to the Crown, the government declared the charter of the Company at an end; and though in the very same year the Crown, to remove all doubts, revived their powers and exclusive privileges by a new charter, the Company were compelled to yield to a stipulation, that their capacity of trading exclusively to India, should in future be determinable on three years' notice.

All obstacle to the establishment of a new Company being thus removed, and the Crown in great want of money for carrying on the national war, the statute of the 9th and 10th of King William was passed, for borrowing two millions on a loan at eight per cent.; the subscribers to which were to be incorporated by a charter into a general society, with liberty for each individual member to trade to India, provided the value of his exports exceeded not his share of the loan; and with liberty also to such of the subscribers as thought proper to convert their subscriptions into a joint stock, so to do, and to be incorporated by a separate charter, by the name of the English East India Company.

In the year 1702, the two companies united, and this union was confirmed by the 6th of Queen Anne. By the charter then granted, the warehouses at home, and shipping, and all the English settlements and factories in the East Indies, Persia, and China, including the islands of Bombay and St. Helena, with their dependencies, and all their rights and privileges, however derived, became vested in the United Company; and by the 10th of the same Queen, a statute passed (in consequence of the advance of a loan to the public without interest) for repealing all former provisoes and powers of determining their trade or incorporation, but with power to redeem the debt at any time after September, 1733.

In the year 1730, an act passed for continuing the exclusive trade to the United Company till 1766; and in 1744, they obtained a farther addition of fourteen years. At this latter period, the debt due from the Public to the Company, amounted to four millions two hundred thousand pounds; carrying with it an annuity of one hundred and twenty-six thousand pounds.

In the 21st of his present Majesty, an act passed for continuing the exclusive trade till 1794; and, in the 33d of the King, another act passed for continuing it, with certain modifications, till 1814.

It is not a little singular, that the General Society, whose members were individually authorised, by the statute of King William,

to trade to India; although they were actually incorporated by the royal charter, and were therefore legally authorised to send ships to India or China, never did, notwithstanding the former clamor for a free trade, fit out any one ship; and that, out of the whole loan of two millions, not more than seven thousand two hundred pounds (afterwards absorbed in the United Company) remained the property of the separate traders. The superior advantages of a joint company, in the trade to India, were so evident, that no merchant would risk his property in a separate concern. It were to be wished that the merchants of the present day would act with equal caution, and forego the attempt to interfere with a concern of such weighty consequence to the general weal.

During the usurpation of Cromwell, the trade to India was indeed, for a short time, opened to a few hardy and desperate adventurers, whose speculations ended in their speedy ruin; and the government saw once more the necessity of confining the trade to a joint company, and so it has continued to the present time.

Having thus sketched, with all possible brevity, the rise and progress of the English East India Company; who, from a very small and unfavorable beginning, have become the first and greatest commercial association in the world, at once the glory of our own country, and the envy of continental Europe, I would seriously exhort his Majesty's ministers to ponder well, ere they suffer themselves to be misled by the clamors of an interested party, who would wildly put to hazard an ascertained revenue of upwards of four millions sterling, per annum; and with it the salvation of British India. We lost an empire in the West, by grasping at too much. We may lose an empire in the East, by a similar attempt.

Westminster,

16th January, 1813.

PROBUS.

LETTER IV.

SIR,

I CANNOT, in common politeness, withhold from Gracchus my acknowledgments, for honoring me with the appellation "of one of the Company's most strenuous champions." Among the many advocates enrolled on the side which I have