time: and that it would be much more advisable now to begin to wind up their concern, than be obliged to do so a few years hence, under still more unfavorable circumstances, and with more impoverished means.

It has been shown, that the immediate consequences of the competition, which would arise, not so much from the fair as from the clandestine trader, under color of this commerce, would be, an abridgment of the Company's sales, and a sinking of their finances. Events which would soon be followed by the necessity of relinquishing their great establishments; of laying up their vast fleets, now the means of transporting troops and stores, as well as of defending their commerce; and of abandoning their buildings, wharfs, warehouses, and other articles of dead stock, formed at a prodigious expence, and suited only to the Indian Trade, which had so long been their's, all of which would, in such case, become useless and deserted! With the decline of the Company, would be thrown out of activity and employ, twenty-one millions of capital, 1400 commanders and officers, 8000 seamen, 12000 tradesmen, 3000 laborers, and seventy-eight of the finest ships in the world, many of them fit to take their station in line of battle with the British Navy!

The practice of using the port of London only, for the East India Trade, which has existed since the first institution of the Company, has been productive of advantages too numerous and too well defined to admit of being relinquished upon the mere presumption of uncertain or remote benefits. The custom of selling their imports, at stated periods, by public auction, has been nearly coeval with the Company. These sales are open, honorable, and satisfactory; and are resorted to, with confidence, by the Merchants of the Continent of Europe, as well as by those of Great Britain. So high indeed is the character of the Company with foreign merchants, that purchases have been made by them "on the faith merely of the descriptive marks; and goods (thus marked), on their arrival on the Continent, frequently pass through various hands, before they are finally unpacked." The injuries and frauds, to which an alteration in this mode, consecrated by the practice of centuries, would necessarily give rise, may be readily conceived.

For the security of the revenue arising from the Trade to India, as has been well observed by the Deputation of the Court of Direc tors, "nothing so effectual could be devised as to bring the imports to one place; to have them lodged under the keys of the Government Officers; to have them sold publicly in the presence of those officers; and finally to have the duties (upwards of four millions per annum), thus carefully ascertained, collected through the medium of the Company, and with hardly any charge to government! In short," say they, "the present system affords the most complete provision that can be imagined against defect, fraud, or expence, in realizing this branch of the revenue to the Public."

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Although we may not be able to say to what precise degree the measure of laying open the Trade to India to private ships, might, in its least noxious operation, immediately affect this branch of the public revenue; there can be no doubt that, by the partial fulfilment of the evils apprehended, it would be considerably injured, and by their total fulfilment destroyed.

It cannot, independently of these considerations, be supposed to make any difference to the East India Company, whether the Trade to India be carried on exclusively from the port of London, or' from that of Bristol, Liverpool, or Glasgow; or indiscrimi nately from all the ports of the United Kingdom. But, since the dangers to be apprehended from the innovations proposed, are as obvious and as well founded as they are great and alarming, it is a duty which that body owe to themselves and to the nation not to submit to them without a struggle.

Accordingly, it was with a spirit fully justified by the occasion, that Sir Hugh Inglis, the present Chairman of the Court of Directors, in a conference with Lord Buckinghamshire, declared it "as his opinion, that the Court of Directors, in the first instance, and the Court of Proprietors, when laid before them, would resist, by every means in their power, a measure so fatal to the vital interests of the Company and to the public revenue as would be the measure of allowing the ships of individuals to import into any place but the port of London," adding, that "situated as he was,

* 4,213,4251. according to the returns of last year.

he should consider it his duty to resist, and to recommend to the Court of Directors, and ultimately to the Proprietors, to resist the proposition."

And this overwhelming ruin, it seems, is to be brought upon the East India Company, and those connected with them, not only without the offer, but without the smallest chance or prospect of indemnification. Nay, after they should have suffered themselves, as a matter of right, to be tamely despoiled of their commercial, they might prepare to surrender their territorial, privileges at discretion. Into the nature of their rights to both, and to consequent indemnity upon the deprivation of either, I shall take occasion more fully to inquire.

And for what beneficial purpose, for what grand object, is this sum of ruin, or even the risk of it, to be incurred? In order (supposing the best, and that the communication with China should not be interrupted), to transfer the same quantity of oriental commerce from London to the out-ports, and from the East India Company to private Merchants! These are the sole objects for which such mighty innovations are now to be attempted; for which a concern that has subsisted for ages, and so succeeded as to be the wonder and envy of the world, is to be subverted and destroyed: and that too on the instigation, or hypothetical reasoning of persons, who erroneously expect, to procure to themselves extraordinary advantages, from a participation in the Trade of which they would deprive the Company.

The only result of any importance to the Public, which we are promised from this innovation, is altogether visionary and fallacious. It is well known to those who are acquainted with India, that the Trade, in European commodities, to that country, is wholly, or almost wholly incapable of being extended. The reverse of this proposition, which is the very first point to be adjusted in this controversy, has been invariably taken for granted, instead of being deliberately examined and decided: and upon this flimsy foundation has been raised the flimsy superstructure of the advocates of what has been called the "Open Trade."

The manufactures of Great Britain, which are annually exported to India, are almost exclusively consumed by the Europeans resident in that country: and until these become much more nu

merous than they are at present, which can only happen in consequence of colonization, the demand for such articles cannot be extended but in a very inconsiderable degree. This incapability of extension, which depends upon the peculiar and almost unchangeable character of the natives of Asia, is a fact too notorious to admit of being denied, or explained away by the abstract reasonings of political economists. To the state of India, at least, their principles cannot for ages apply. This has been set forth in a clear, satisfactory, and convincing manner, by Messrs. Grant and Parry, in their Letter of April, 1809, and in the correspondence of the successive Chairmen of the Court of Directors, since that period, with the President of the Board of Controul, on the subject of the renewal of the Company's Charter. Referring the reader, who wishes to be fully acquainted with the details, to those very able documents, I shall content myself here with stating a few simple but strong facts, which, in my humble apprehension, it is impossible to reconcile to a contrary conclusion.

Of the three thousand tons per annum, which the Company are bound, by the act of 1793, to retain for the accommodation of private traders, not above 1200 tons annually, on an average of eighteen years, have been claimed, or little more than one third: and of these 1200 tons, 430, or more than one third, were wine and beer, which articles are consumed by Europeans almost exclusively.

Had there been a demand for any greater quantity of goods than is annually exported by the Company, by the commanders and officers of their ships, and by the private traders admitted under the act of 1793, amounting in all to about two millions sterling, the remainder of the tonnage allowed to private traders by that act would surely have been claimed. This, by the genius of commerce, I hold to be conclusive evidence.

That this tonnage was not claimed then, shows demonstratively that there has not been, since 1793, an increasing demand, to any extent, for the European articles of consumption, used either by the European or native inhabitants of India. Those consumed by the natives, it is well known, are few and inconsiderable. With such, however, as they have occasion for, they are abundantly supplied by the agency of private traders, resident in the East,

whose industry embraces all the ports, to which the commerce of the Company does not extend. This, when carried on by sea, is called the country, or coasting trade. But it also extends its ramifications by land, to the most minute portions of the interior of Asia. And the knowledge and experience of those concerned in it would surely leave nothing of any great value for rivals, fresh from Europe, to explore.

It has been a grievous accusation against the East India Company, that they have neglected to cultivate the trade to several parts within their limits, and prevented the export of our manufactures to "some of the largest and richest regions of the world," where, say the complainants, "there is reason to believe the private merchant might, in the course of an open trade, increase his profits twenty-fold and upwards." The parts here more especially alluded to, are, the Eastern coasts of Africa, the coasts of the Gulfs of Arabia and Persia, and the shores of the Red Sea. But, besides the proofs arising from the recorded efforts of the Company, even in early times, to extend the sale of British manufactures in those quarters, a sufficient refutation of this charge is to be found in its absurdity. Were it even possible to believe that the East India Company would have been so blind to their interests as to have neglected a commerce which would have increased their profits "twenty-fold or upwards," it could never be credited that the same indifference to their worldly concerns would have affected the individual traders of the East, unless it be also believed that the climate of India possesses the quality of lessening or destroying the ordinary cupidity of man. Of late times at least, these traders have existed in sufficient numbers to pervade every nook and corner of Asia: and it is not very probable that all of them would have overlooked so favorable an opportunity of speedily making their fortunes. is notorious that all the attempts, which have been made, to extend the sale of European commodities in India, formerly by the Dutch and Portuguese, at all times by the East India Company, and latterly by American private traders, have failed. Where the efforts of the merchants of those several nations, both in a corporate and individual capacity, and possessing the benefit of great experience, have so long and so uniformly failed, by what species of magic is it that British individual traders, without experience, can now be expected to establish a lucrative trade?

It