



Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)






THE LETTERS

GRACCHUS

ON THE

_EAST INDIA QUESTION_.

_LONDON_:

PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD,

BOOKSELLER AND PUBLISHER,

NO. 190, OPPOSITE ALBANY, PICCADILLY.

1813.


Printed by S. GOSNELL, Little Queen Street, London.




ADVERTISEMENT.


The following Letters appeared in the MORNING POST, at the dates which
are annexed to them. The impartial Reader will find in them a strong
determination, to uphold the public rights of the Country, with respect
to the India Trade; but he will not discover any evidence of a desire to
lower the just, and well-earned honours, of THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, nor
any symptom of a disposition hostile to their fair pretensions.

LETTERS

OF

GRACCHUS.




LETTER I.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE EAST INDIA QUESTION.


_Tuesday, January 12, 1813._

The crisis, at which the affairs of the East India Company are now
arrived, is one which involves the most important interests of the
British Empire. It would be unnecessary to prove a proposition which is
so universally acknowledged and felt. It has happened however, that, in
our approaches towards this crisis, the Public understanding has been
but little addressed upon the subject; so that the appeal which is now
suddenly made to their passions and imaginations, finds them unprepared
with that knowledge of the true circumstances of the case, which can
alone enable them to govern those passions, and control those
imaginations. Let us then endeavour to recover the time which has been
lost, by taking a deliberate view of the circumstances which produce
this crisis.

The crisis, is the proximity of the term which may conclude the East
India Company's rights, to the exclusive trade with India and China, and
to the powers of government now exercised by them over the Indian
Empire.

The rights of the East India Company 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[1]. 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 negotiation. 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 open 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.

The renewal of an _expired_ privilege cannot be pursued upon a ground of
_right_. The exclusive Charter of the Company is _a patent_, and their
patent, like every other patent, is limited as to _its duration_. But
though the patentee cannot allege a ground of right for the renewal of
his patent, he may show such strong pretensions, such good claims in
equity, such weighty reasons of expediency for its renewal, as may
ensure its attainment. Such are the claims and the pretensions of the
East India Company to a renewal of their Charter; and as such they have
been promptly and cheerfully received, both by the Government and the
country at large.

But the progress of society, during a long course of years, is of a
nature to produce a considerable alteration in the general state of
things; the state of things must, therefore, naturally be called into
consideration, upon the expiration of the term of years which determines
the exclusive Charter of the East India Company; in order to inquire,
whether that Charter should be renewed precisely in the same terms, and
with the same conditions, as before; or whether the actual state of
public affairs demands, that some alteration, some modification, of
terms and conditions, should be introduced into the Charter or System
which is to succeed.

The arduous task of this investigation must necessarily fall upon those
persons, who chance to be in the Administration of the Country, at the
latest period to which the arrangements for the renewal of the Charter
can be protracted; and it is hardly possible to imagine a more difficult
and perplexing position, for any Administration. Those persons, if they
have any regard for the duties which they owe to the Public, will
consider themselves as standing _between two interests_; the interest of
those who are about to lose an exclusive right, and the interest of
those who are about to acquire an open and a common one. They will be
disposed to listen, patiently and impartially, to the pretensions of
both parties; of those who pray for the renewal of an exclusive
privilege, and of those who pray that they may not be again wholly
excluded from the right which has reverted. And although they may amply
allow the preference which is due to the former petitioners, yet they
will endeavour to ascertain, whether the latter may not, with safety to
the public interest, receive some enlargement of the benefits, which the
opportunity opens to them, and from which they have been so long
excluded.

While they thus look alternately to each of these interests, and are
engaged in striving to establish a reconciliation between the two, it
will be neither equitable nor liberal for one of the interested parties
to throw out a doubt to the Public, whether they do this "from a
consciousness of strength, and a desire of increasing their own power
and influence, or from a sense of weakness and a wish to strengthen
themselves by the adoption of popular measures[2]." And the author of
the doubt may find himself at length obliged to determine it, by an
awkward confession, that Ministers do not do it "with any view of
augmenting their own patronage and power[3]."

It is thus that the Ministers of the Crown have conducted themselves, in
the embarrassing crisis into which they have fallen. Fully sensible of
the just and honourable pretensions which the East India Company have
established in the course of their long, important, and distinguished
career, they have consented to recommend to Parliament, _to leave the
whole system of Indian Government and Revenue to the Company_, under the
provisions of the Act of 1793; together with _the exclusive trade to
China_, as they have hitherto possessed them; but, at the same time,
considering the present state of the world, and its calamitous effects
upon the commercial interest in general, they are of opinion, that some
participation in the Indian trade, thus reverting, might possibly be
conceded, under due regulations, to British merchants not belonging to
the East India Company; which would not impair the interests either of
the Public or of the Company.

In this moderate opinion, they are fully justified, by the consent of
the Company, to admit the Merchants of the out-ports to a share in the
Indian trade. And thus far, all is amicable. But the out-port Merchants
having represented to Government, that the condition, hitherto annexed
to a Licensed Import Trade,--of bringing back their Indian Cargoes to
the port of London, and of disposing of them solely in the Company's
sales, in Leadenhall Street,--would defeat the object of the concession;
and that the delay, embarrassment, and perplexity, which such an
arrangement would create, would destroy the simple plan of their
venture; and having therefore desired, that they might be empowered to
return with their cargoes to the ports from whence they originally
sailed, and to which all their interests are confined; Government, being
convinced of the justice of the representation, have proposed that the
Import Trade may be yielded to the Out-ports, _under proper
regulations_, as well as the Export Trade. To this demand the Court of
Directors peremptorily refuse their consent; and upon this _only point_
the parties are now at issue. This question alone, <DW44>s the final
arrangements for the renewal of their Charter.

Yet it is this point, which one of the parties interested affirms, to be
"a question of the last importance to the safety of the British Empire
in India, and of the British Constitution at home;" and therefore
undertakes to resist it, with all the determination 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 Liverpool 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 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 be 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
