The Letters of Gracchus on the East India Question 9
HERAT.--"At Herat, I found in two Karavanseras about one hundred Hindoo
merchants, who, by the maintenance of a brisk commerce, and by
extending a long chain of credit, have become valuable subjects to the
Government. When the Hindoos cross the Attock, they usually put on the
dress of a northern Asiatic, being seldom seen without a long cloth
coat, and a high cap[5]."
TURSHISH.--"About one hundred Hindoo families, from Moultan and
Jessilmere, are established in this town, which is the extreme limit of
their emigration on this side of Persia. They occupy a quarter in which
no Mahomedan is permitted to reside; and I was not a little surprised to
see those of the Bramin sect distinguished by the appellation of
_Peerzadah_, a title which the Mahomedans usually bestow on the
descendants of their Prophet. Small companies of Hindoos are also
settled at Meschid, Yezd, Kachin, Casbin, and some parts of the Caspian
shore; and more extensive societies are established in the different
parts of the Persian Gulf, where they maintain a navigable commerce with
the western coast of India[6]."
BAKU.--"A society of Moultan Hindoos, which has long been established at
Baku, contributes largely to the circulation of its commerce; and, with
the Armenians, they may be accounted the principal merchants of
Shirwan. The Hindoos of this quarter usually embark at Tatta, a large
insular town in the lower tract of the Indus; whence they proceed to
Bassorah, and thence accompany the caravans, which are frequently
passing into Persia: some also travel inland to the Caspian Sea, by the
road of Candahar and Herat. I must here mention, that we brought from
Baku five Hindoos; two of them were merchants of Moultan, and three were
mendicants, a father, his son, and a Sunyassee (the name of a religious
sect of Hindoos, chiefly of the Brahmin tribe). The Hindoos had supplied
the little wants of the latter, and recommended him _to their agents in
Russia_, whence, he said, he should like to proceed with me to England.
The Moultanee Hindoos were going to Astrachan, merely on a commercial
adventure[7]."
ASTRACHAN.--"The Hindoos also enjoy at Astrachan every fair indulgence.
They are not stationary residents, nor do they keep any of their females
in this city; but, after accumulating a certain property, they return to
India, and are succeeded by other adventurers. Being a mercantile sect
of their nation, and occupied in a desultory species of traffic, they
have neglected to preserve any record of their first settlement, and
subsequent progress, in this quarter of Russia; nor is the fact
ascertained, with any accuracy, by the natives of Astrachan[8]."
Having thus seen, that the natives of India are in no respect averse to
engage in commercial dealings with strangers, and that no prejudices
exist among them of a nature to prevent them from using our
manufactures; we cannot but be forcibly struck with the reflection, that
no systematic plan has ever been adopted by the East India Company, to
attract the attention of the Hindoos to the various articles of our home
manufacture, or to stimulate their speculation in the traffic of them.
Whereas, in Europe, the Company have always found it necessary, for the
disposal of their Indian Imports, to take active measures for drawing
the attention of the nations of the European Continent to their sales in
London.
The Directors, in their letter to Lord Buckinghamshire, under date of
the 15th of April, 1812, (adverting to their sales in Europe,) observe,
"That the Foreign Buyers repose confidence in the regularity and
publicity with which the Company's sales are conducted; that the
particulars of their cargoes are published immediately on the arrival
of the ships, and distributed all over the Continent. That notices of
the quantities to be sold, and periods of sale, are also published for
general distribution; and that the sales of each description of goods
are made at stated periods, twice in the year."
_No measure of this nature has ever been projected for India_; and yet,
the predilection of the natives of India, both Hindoo and Mahomedan, for
public shows, scenes of general resort, and exhibitions of every kind,
is so well known, that we may confidently affirm, that nothing could
have a surer tendency to draw them together, than a display, at
periodical fairs, of our various manufactures. Fairs of this kind, for
the sale of their home manufactures, have been held from time
immemorial, in every part of India. The Company, therefore, needed only
to engraft, upon an established usage of the Hindoos, a regular plan of
periodical fairs; and, by thus adopting in India a course analogous to
that which they have found it necessary to employ in Europe, they might
generally have arrived at giving to Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay,
attractions of curiosity and mercantile interest, which would most
probably have drawn to those settlements the wealthy natives from every
part of the East; and have rendered the capital cities of British India,
what Amsterdam, Frankfort, and Leipsic have long been in Europe, the
resorts of all descriptions of people, and the repositories of every
European article of use and luxury. From these different centres of
commerce, the markets of the interior of India, and especially those
held at the scenes of religious assembly, might be furnished with
supplies; and, under the fostering encouragement of a wise and provident
Government, the intelligence and enterprise of the natives of India
might be called into action, and be stimulated, by a powerful motive, to
exert in their own country those commercial talents that have obtained
for them the encouragements, which, upon the unimpeachable testimony of
Mr. Forster, they have long received in Persia, and in parts of Russia.
The advantage of collecting together, at stated periods and in
established points, the productions of human industry and ingenuity, has
been so universally felt by all nations; that there is scarcely a
country, advanced to any degree of civilization, in which the practice
has not prevailed. To effect this object, with a view to the extension
of our export trade in India, _active encouragement_ is alone requisite;
but, in order to give it stability, _native agency_ must be called forth
into action. The supplies which (as was mentioned on a former occasion)
were found at Poonah, were obtained from that source alone. The Parsee
merchants at Bombay, are the principal agents of the Commanders and
Officers of the Company's ships; such parts of their investments as are
not disposed of among the European population, are purchased, and
circulated in the interior, by the Parsees. The small supplies of
European manufactures which find their way into the principal cities of
the Deccan, proceed from this source: but there is reason to believe,
that the articles which arrive at those places are too frequently of an
inferior sort, or such as have sustained damage in the transit from
Europe.
To give perfection to the great object here sketched out, it will be
indispensably necessary that the local authorities in India should
direct their most serious attention to this subject. As _our Indian
empire is our only security for our Indian trade_, so our Indian trade
must be rendered an object of vigilant concern to those who administer
the Government of that empire. From the multiplicity and importance of
their other avocations, that trade has not hitherto received all the
consideration to which its high value is entitled; but, whenever an
adequate regard shall be paid to it, it will become a duty of the
Governments to take active and effectual steps, for _drawing the
attention of the natives to our exported commodities_, and for
_promoting the dispersion of those commodities_, within the sphere of
their influence or power.
We now discern _one operative cause_ of the comparatively small demand
for, and consumption of, our European articles, in the Indian empire; a
cause, however, which it is within our capacity to control, or to
remove. And, after what has been summarily exposed, in this and in the
preceding communication, it can be no difficult point to determine,
whether _this cause_, or the alleged _prejudices of the Hindoos_, have
most contributed to limit the extent of our Export Trade to India.
GRACCHUS.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Forster's Travels, p. 135-6.
[6] P. 166.
[7] Forster's Travels, p. 228.
[8] Forster's Travels, p. 259.
LETTER X.
THE RIGHTS AND PRETENSIONS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.
_Monday, March 8, 1813._
It is now become a matter of the most solemn importance, that the public
attention should be called to a clear and deliberate survey of THE
RIGHTS and PRETENSIONS of the East India Company; and that the judgment
of Parliament should be directed to, and its sense declared upon, the
subject of those pretensions, which have generated A NEW CONSTITUTIONAL
QUESTION, and are now carried to an height to affect the supreme
Sovereignty of the State. To discuss those Rights and Pretensions at
large, would demand a far more extended space than the present occasion
can supply; but it would be altogether unnecessary to enter into a more
enlarged discussion; because, in order to obtain the end here proposed,
of drawing and fixing the attention of Parliament and the Public upon
the subject, little more is required, than to bring those several Rights
and Pretensions into one compressed and distinct point of view; and to
leave it to the legislative wisdom to determine finally upon their
validity.
The rights of the East India Company, are usually distinguished into
their _temporary_ rights, and their _perpetual_ or _permanent_ rights.
I. The temporary rights of the Company are:
1. _A right to the exclusive trade with all the countries lying eastward
from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan._ This right is _a
lease_ of all the _public right_ to the trade of those parts of the
world; which lease has been renewed to the Company, from time to time,
in consideration of a varying premium to be paid by them to the Public.
2. _A right to administer the government and revenue of all the
territories in India acquired by them during their term in the
exclusive trade._ This is a right delegated from the Crown, with the
assent of Parliament; and which can be possessed by the Company no
longer, than the authority from which it emanates has, or shall
prescribe.
Upon the expiration of these temporary rights, which determine, as the
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