The Letters of Gracchus on the East India Question 6

The Letters of Gracchus on the East India Question 6

The regulations, which were adopted for ships importing from India to

the out-ports, are to be found in the Act 9 and 10 William III. c. 44.

s. 69. and were as follows:--

 

 

"Provided always, and it is here enacted, that no Company, or

_particular person or persons_, who shall have a right, in

pursuance of this Act, to trade to the East Indies, or other parts

within the limits aforesaid, shall be allowed to trade, until

_sufficient security_ shall be first given (which the Commissioners

of the Customs in England, or any three or more of them for the

time being, are hereby authorized and required to take, in the

name and to the use of His Majesty, his heirs and successors), that

such Company, or _particular persons_, shall cause all the goods,

wares, merchandise, and commodities, which shall at any time or

times hereafter, during the continuance of this Act, be laden by or

for them, or _any of them_, or for their, or any of their accounts,

in _any ship_ or ships whatsoever, bound from the said East Indies,

or parts within the limits aforesaid, to be brought (without

breaking bulk), to _some port of England or Wales_, and _there be

unladen and put to land_, &c. And that all goods and merchandises

belonging to the Company aforesaid, or _any other traders to the

East Indies_, and which shall be _imported into England or Wales_,

as aforesaid, pursuant to this Act, shall by them be sold openly

and publicly, by inch of candle, _upon their respective accounts_,

and not otherwise."

 

 

Upon this Act of the 9th and 10th of William III. was built, in the

following year, that famous Charter of the Company, upon which they rest

the weight of their pretensions; and that very Charter, as is here

rendered incontestable by the Act itself, comprehended the principle,

_of an Import Trade from India to the_ OUT-PORTS _of the kingdom_.

 

The form and condition of the security which was to be given by the

out-port merchants, will be found in the Act, 6th Anne, c. 3. entitled,

"_An Act for better securing the duties on East India goods_." By that

Act, the security to be given was fixed "at the rate of 2500l. sterling

for every hundred ton their ships or vessels shall be respectively let

for;" and the _only_ restriction imposed upon the import trade from

India was, that it should be brought "_to some port in Great Britain_."

 

Thus, then, any man who looks but a little beyond the objects which lie

accidentally before his eyes, may see, that the measure now suggested by

Government, instead of being a wild and airy speculation, a theoretical

innovation, a _new_, untried, and dangerous experiment, on which we have

no ground to reason from experience (as it has been ignorantly and

falsely asserted), is nothing more than reverting to an _ancient_

principle, involved in the Company's applauded Charter of the 10th of

William the Third, and to the practice of our forefathers in the

brightest period of our domestic history; a period, in which the British

Constitution received its last perfection, and from which the present

power and greatness of the British Empire, in the East and in the West,

dates its origin.

 

Having sufficiently proved and established this _great fact_, let us

next inquire, what history reveals to us, of _the consequences_ of that

import trade to the out-ports, that can tend, in any degree, to justify,

or give support to, the Company, in determining to resort to an

alternative which, they acknowledge, will subvert the system of Indian

Government (and thereby shake the Constitution at home), rather than

_renew the measure_ of a regulated trade to the out-ports.

 

We have not to deduce these consequences from _abstract hypothesis_, but

from _historical testimony_; let us, then, observe what that testimony

unfolds. No evil, of any kind whatever, resulted to the incorporated, or

Joint Stock Company, from the privilege enjoyed by the out ports. On the

contrary, that _Joint Stock Company_, issuing out of the General Society

of Merchants (which, as has been above stated, soon became the English

East India Company), rose above all their competitors, notwithstanding

the power of importing, without limitation, to _any of the ports of the

kingdom_; and such was the rapidity of their progress, that they

overcame the former, or London Company; they obtained a surrender of all

their rights to St. Helena, Bombay, and all their other islands and

settlements in India; they at length received that ancient Company into

their own body; and finally became the United East India Company of the

present day. And so little did the competition and free import of the

general merchants tend to obstruct the growth of the United Company,

even in the age of its _infancy_; and so "superior were the advantages

they derived from trading with a joint-stock (to use the words of one of

the Company's most strenuous champions), that at the time of the union

of the two Companies, out of the whole loan of two millions, only

7000l. then remained the property of the _separate traders of the

General Society_; and this sum also was soon absorbed in the United

Company[4]." If then the Company, starting originally with only a joint

stock, against a competition in the out-ports of the kingdom, with a

power to import to those out-ports, outstripped and overcame all their

competitors; what can they seriously apprehend from a renewal of the

same experiment, in the present momentum of their power, and when they

are able to unite with their joint-stock, the whole of the revenues of

their present empire in the East?

 

But it may be asked, if no better success is likely to attend the

commercial speculations of the out-ports, why is so strong an effort

made, to admit them to a share in the India trade? The answer is

obvious. When Mr. Dundas, in the year 1800, so forcibly expressed his

opinion against any such admission, he did not ground that opinion upon

a question of _ports_, but of _commercial capital_. He considered the

capital of the Company as sufficient for all the advantage which the

Public, in the aggregate, could derive from the India Trade; and he

maintained, that the aggregate interest of the Public would suffer from

any measure, tending "to divert any larger proportion of the commercial

capital of the country from a more advantageous and more profitable

use." But the circumstances of the world are become materially altered,

since the period of 1800. The commercial capital, of which Mr. Dundas

then reasoned, is deprived of that advantageous and profitable

employment which his argument supposed, and is therefore without

application or direction; from whence it has resulted, that the

operation of commerce is interrupted, and its activity suspended. The

allowing that capital to be partially directed to the markets of India,

would therefore, under present circumstances, have the great national

advantage, of recovering the activity and spirit of commerce, and of

encouraging an extensive public interest which is at present

disappointed, if not dormant; and, whenever a more prosperous state of

things should return, the capital so engaged for a time, would, from the

nature of commerce, unquestionably recall itself, and seek again a more

profitable market, if any such should open. In the mean time, the East

India Company, adding to their joint-stock all the revenues of India,

need hardly know, because they could not _feel_, that they had any

competitors in the markets of India. And, as the Executive Government

was able to guard the out-ports against smuggling in the period of _the

infancy_ of the Company, they might and ought to feel a perfect

confidence, that the same authority can guard them equally now, in the

present period of _their maturity_.

 

Thus, since history renders it indisputable, that an import trade from

India to the out-ports of the kingdom has been heretofore exercised

under Acts of Parliament, and that it may be perfectly compatible with

the highest prosperity of the East India Company; since the Executive

Government can guard it against smuggling at the present day, as well as

in the reigns of King William and Queen Anne; and since a great and

urgent national interest reasonably demands it, both from Parliament and

the Company; the present moment furnishes a most fit occasion for the

Company to consider, Mr. Dundas's solemn call upon "their wisdom,

policy, and liberality," made by him to them in the year 1800; and also,

his weighty admonition, that "_if any thing can endanger their monopoly,

it is_ AN UNNECESSARY ADHERENCE TO POINTS NOT ESSENTIAL TO THEIR

EXISTENCE."

 

It has been called _illiberal_, to question the motives of the

Directors, in refusing their consent to an import trade to the

out-ports. But, with the facts of history, which have been here

produced, staring us and them in the face, it would be impossible not to

question those motives. No man can entertain a higher respect for the

East India Company, as a body politic and corporate, or contemplate with

higher admiration the distinguished career which it has run, than

Gracchus; but, at the same time, no one is better persuaded of the

operation of _policy_, in a body circumstanced as they are. And it is

more especially necessary to watch that policy, and to be free to

interpret _political motives_, at the present crisis, because, at the

eve of the expiration of the Company's _last_ Charter, in 1793, certain

rights were anxiously alleged on their behalf, in a work entitled, "_A

Short History of the East India Company_, &c." rights absolutely

unmaintainable, and utterly incompatible with the sovereignty of the

Empire, and the freedom of the Constitution; and the allegations then

made, appear now to assume the form of _a practical assertion_. To those

alleged rights, therefore, it will be advisable early to call the

attention of Parliament and of the nation.

 

GRACCHUS.

 

FOOTNOTE:

 

[4] A Short History of the East India Company.

 

 

 

 

LETTER VII.

 

 

_Wednesday, Jan. 27, 1813._

 

There is an irritability manifested at the present moment, by those who

are intimately united in interest with the East India Company, which

appears strongly indicative of an unhealthy case. It is well known, that

the revenues of the Company, far from being able to contribute to the

revenues of the State that augmentation which was made the condition of

the Company's present Charter, have, from causes which the Directors

could not control, been so deficient, that they have been obliged, at

different times, to apply to Parliament for pecuniary aid; that they are

burdened with a debt of not less than forty-two millions; and that they

are _now_ unable to discharge their engagements, without again coming to