burthen-then to permit ships of even a smaller size to navigate the eastern seas-evinces a degree of patience, temperance, and caution, which must conciliate the most timid and satisfy the most prudent. At last the fulness of time seems to be come, when the nation is prepared to receive arrangements, founded on a resolution that the East India Company is in no way advantageous as a commercial or political institution, but rather an expensive incumbrance and obstruction, which ought long ago to have been removed.

'It is now almost universally agreed that the Company has long outlasted the purposes for which it was created, or in the fulfilment of which it could ever usefully participate. The first voyages, under Queen Elizabeth's charter, partook of the romantic character of an argonautic expedition; and for upwards of a hundred years there was, in the frame of the society, a principle of vitality which sustained them under all the vicissitudes of their own fortunes and of national revolution. During all that period their constitution was perfectly adapted to their functions; but, after commercial intercourse with the several countries in the east had been securely established, and after the national force had been mainly instrumental in the acquisition of territorial power,* the genius of the Company became more and more alien and repugnant to the high duties which devolved on it. Without making any extraordinary demand on the intelligence of the age, the dissolution of the Company might have been expected about the year 1784; still more naturally in 1793; still more in 1813; but, though the absorbing interest of the war with France affords some apology for the feeble half-measures of those days, there will neither be that nor any other excuse for inadequate arrangements, at the approaching expiration of their exclusive privileges.

'If any doubts remained as to the expediency of throwing open the tea trade, they were removed by the evidence taken by the Committee, of which Lord Lansdown was chairman, in 1821. But, notwithstanding the conclusive nature of the evidence in favour of the removal of restrictions, the impression produced by it is less intense than that which results from the violation of all received doctrines, and of all logic, exhibited by the counter-evidence. To read proofs of the superior activity and economy of free trade is sometimes tedious and superfluous; but, when the monopolist is required plainly to state his pretensions, we cannot listen to them with indifference: they provoke our impatience to correct the absurdity

Assuredly the conquest of India, from the expulsion of the French in the seven years' war to the battle of Mahedpore, never could have been effected without national fleets, national troops, and national authority. Yet we are informed that " our astonishment will be increased when it is added that this great conquest was made not by the collective force of the nation, but by a company of merchants."'—Malcolm's Pol. Hist. of India, lib. i.

and remedy the evil. For these reasons, I extract the following passages from the evidence of Mr. Charles Grant, as being more satisfactory and stimulating than any thing that was or could be advanced on the other side.

'On the subject of the expensiveness of the Company's China ships, from their being "constructed for war and for political purposes as well as for trade," Mr. Grant observes that " they serve also to command respect for the nation and its interests throughout the Indian seas, and particularly from the supercilious and despotic government of China. It would be ruinous to the Company's interests to give up this admirable class of ships, and to entrust their valuable China commodities, and the protection of their interests in the eastern seas, to a parcel of small ships taken up fortuitously, and for a single voyage."

'On the nature of the "respect" thus inspired into the Chinese Government, and the fruits thereof, he says, "Although the English experience a full share of the haughtiness and insolence with which foreigners are generally treated while in China, yet the Chinese themselves can no more conceal their dread of the military character and power of the British nation, than they can deny their commercial preponderance among the various nations who visit the port of Canton for trade; and, whatever advantages the servants of the East India Company may have derived, in their various discussions with the Chinese authorities, from the opinion which they entertain of the power and commercial superiority of the British nation-advantages to which the present state of the whole foreign intercourse may be justly ascribed; it is, nevertheless, the fact that the ENGLISH in China are considered as the objects of more peculiar jealousy; and hence THEIR whole conduct is watched with more scrupulous care."—" The Chinese respect the wealth and property, the ships and the servants, of the Company; and that respect is intimately connected with their own interest; but I do not think they would at all equally respect an individual, though having the commission. of the King of Great Britain."

'It is well known that the trade of Canton is conducted, on the part of the Chinese, through the medium of a company of monopolists, called the Hong merchants. It might be supposed, therefore, that Mr. Grant would speak with much approbation of this part of Chinese policy, especially as the profits of the Chinese Company are not fixed, like the rate of dividend of the English Company, but rise and fall according to the result of their several transactions. It might have occurred to him, that, whatever could be said for or against making an exclusive Company the sole channel of foreign commerce, was equally applicable to the English as to the Chinese Company. If the English Company is beneficial to the English nation, the Chinese one must become more so to the Chinese nation, being composed of individuals who are really, and not nominally, mer

chants; and, if the Chinese system is injurious, the English system must be more so. Nevertheless, Mr. Grant, thus describes and characterises the restrictive policy of the Chinese :-" The nonextension of the sale of our manufactures in China may indeed be, in a great measure, charged to monopoly, but to a species of it now unknown in Europe, and framed by the Chinese themselves. Restricting foreigners to one port, they will only allow them to trade with one Company in that port, consisting of eight or ten persons, to whom all the foreign trade is confined in absolute monopoly; the foreigners not being permitted to trade with any other Chinese, nor any other Chinese to trade with foreigners, unless with the sanction of the monopoly merchants, called the Hong."—"The jealous policy of the Chinese Government; the strict monopoly against its own subjects, under which it has placed the trade of foreigners; the narrow channel through which that trade has its entrance into the country; the inadequacy of such a channel for conveying a large trade to distant parts, &c.—all these formidable hindrances to the extension of British commerce in China seem to be quite unknown or overlooked; but they are all realities."" The Chinese Hong fix among themselves the prices of the imports they receive from foreigners, and the prices of the exports they furnish to them, and, therefore, are in effect the arbiters of the extent of foreign trade."

'Now for the contrast between the barbarous Chinese monopoly and the refined English monopoly. "The India Company," says Mr. Grant, "acts, in its commercial concerns in China, as an individual: it has an unity of counsel and of operation. It is so far a match for the Chinese Campany, the Hong. Its imports are not depreciated, as they would be if brought in by various individuals, each going to market for himself; in this way one might continually offer lower than another, and the general standard of the selling price of imports be lowered. In the purchase of goods for exportation, directly the contrary might be expected: competition would enhance their prices; and thus the trade, both in imports and exports, be turned against the British merchant, by the number of dealers."—" The Company, from public-spirited motives, have long carried on a large trade in that article (woollens) from England to Canton, at an annual loss to themselves; that is to say, they could carry bullion to Canton on better terms, commercially speaking, than they carry woollens; but, from a desire to promote the manufactures of this country, they submit to a certain loss upon the article of woollens, taking teas in barter for them, and being indemnified in the result by the exclusive privilege of selling tea in this country."—"We cannot get the Chinese to raise the price of the woollens beyond what they stood at a remote period, when woollens were, from many causes, much cheaper in this country than they are now."

'It is needless to insist that all the excellencies ascribed to the India Company must be possessed by the Chinese Company. The latter, doubtless, are careful that competition shall not enhance prices when they are buyers,-as of woollens from the English, and of tea from the Chinese producers; nor lower them when they are sellers, as of tea to the English, and of woollens to the Chinese consumers. They, also, frequently "submit to a certain loss," to conciliate men in authority, "being indemnified in the result by their exclusive privileges." In every respect, the one is a "match" for the other.

The quantity of tea annually consumed in Great Britain is less than 25,000,000 of pounds, and it has been calculated, that, under a free trade, allowing two ounces per week to each adult, it ought to be upwards of 60,000,000. Suppose it should only be increased to 50,000,000, the profits of the wholesale and retail dealers, and on the augmented value of the export-cargoes of China, would amount to vast sums, the loss of which may be considered a tax without any kind of compensation. But say that the price of tea has been enhanced only one shilling in the pound (whereof sixpence for duty) on 20,000,000l., here is at once a tax of 1,000,000l. per annum, not for the support of the public revenne, but of an exploded and wasteful system of monopoly.

'If, then, it clearly appears expedient to throw open the teatrade, the question of the abolition of the East India Company is decided, unless it should be found that in their political capacity they perform functions which could not otherwise be provided for at less cost for they profess their inability to continue and to trade in concurrence with private merchants; so that the mere opening of the trade would be equivalent to their expulsion from it, and deprivation of the only fund for paying their dividends. "It cannot

be unknown," said Mr. Grant to the Committee of 1821, "that the stability of the Company, and their means of conducting the Indian administration, at present entirely depend on the profits of the China monopoly, because they derive no income whatever from the territory;" so that, if the China monopoly were now to fail, they would not have wherewithal to pay the dividends to the Proprietors; the Indian territory not only yielding nothing to them, but being very largely in debt."

'Since the opening of the trade in 1813, the increase of the exports and imports has been sufficient to falsify the predictions of all the witnesses brought forward by the Company, but has fallen incomparably short of what it would have been if the trade of agriculture had also been laid open. Without colonisation it is impossible that any considerable augmentation of the exportable productions of India, or of demand for the manufactures of Great Britain, can ever take place; and with colonisation the augmentation of both is incalculable. Besides indefinitely improving the

quality of the commodities which now constitute the list of exports, new articles, such as coffee, cocoa, and cochineal, " might be made to enrich the commerce of the Ganges, and afford a return investment, understated at a crore of rupees."

In the Report of the Lords' Committee of 1821, it is stated that the value of merchandise exported from Great Britain to India had increased from 870,1771., in 1815, to 3,052,7417., in 1819. In the tables of Cæsar Moreau, I find the increase stated only at from 2,153,1201. in 1815, to 3,163,647l., in 1822. But the increase of British cotton manufactures exported to India was from 142,4117., in 1815, to 1,147,3931., in 1822. It was respecting the probable extension of the demand for this article that the principal dispute was maintained; the manufacturers insisting that the astonishing powers of machinery enabled them to produce it in such cheapness as to create a demand for it throughout the whole of India, while the witnesses for the Company, civil and military, strangers to the mysteries of trade, but presuming on what they considered the indispensable advantage of local knowledge, pronounced with more solemn confidence that the few wants of the Natives could be supplied at a cheaper rate, and more to their taste, by articles of their own manufacture. Some specimens of the testimony then recorded may now be read with profit and amusement: Such a scene will never be rehearsed again.

"The following facts exhibit some of the differences which characterise the Company's and the private trade. The East India sugar imported by the Company fell from 40,241 cwt. in 1814, to 11,370 cwt. in 1822; while the quantity imported by the private trade rose from 9,608 cwt. in 1814, to 215,099 cwt. in 1822. The influence of the Company's commercial residents has prevented the superiority of the private trader from being equally conspicuous in Bengal raw silk; but in China raw silk, while the quantity imported by the Company fell from 138,326 lbs. in 1814, to 88,969 lbs. in 1822, the quantity imported by the private trade rose from 12,303 lbs. in 1814, to 133,706 lbs. in 1822.

Since the Company's dividends are confessedly levied on the people of England, in the shape of artificially-enhanced expenses and profits, and are less than a moiety of the tax to which their monopoly subjects the nation: since it is admitted that, in their commercial capacity, the Company are positively, and negatively, a great evil, it would follow that sentence of dissolution cannot be averted but by showing that the advantages derived from them in their political character are proportionately great. And, if it should indeed be found that the latter preponderate, the result would be without a parallel in any age or country.

'One advocate for the Company is of opinion that a sufficient compensation for these sacrifices is found, not in any peculiar qualifications possessed by the gentlemen who, by dint of wealth, con