selves upon their Incorporation into the Sovereignty, as a new, and fourth estate of the Empire.

It is that maxim, evidently embraced for this construction at the present crisis, that has emboldened the conductors of the Company's concerns to assume so lofty a demeanour towards the King's servants; and to venture to represent the cautious proceedings of Government in a great political question (in which it appears only as a moderator between two conflicting interests), to be an aggression against their indisputable rights. It has been asked in the Court of Proprietors," whether the ministers of the present day are become so far exalted above their predecessors, or the Company so newly fallen, that adequate communications should not be made to the latter, of the plans and intentions of the former?" It is neither the one nor the other; but it is, that the Company are become so elated and intoxicated by the ambitious expectation of being incorporated as a perpetual member of the Supreme Government, that they conceive they have no longer any measures to keep with the Ministers of the Crown.

And can the British people now fail to open their eyes, and to discern the strait to which the ancient crown and realm of England would be reduced, by submitting to acknowledge this new estate in the Empire? Greatly as it would be to be lamented that any thing should disturb the present internal tranquillity of our political system, yet, if such should be the necessary result of a resistance to the ambitious views of the East India Company, it ought to be manfully and cheerfully encountered; rather than admit, by a temporizing concession, a claim which shall bend Parliament to the will of, and degrade the Crown to an alliance with, a Company of its own subjects; which owes its recent existence to the charters of the Crown, and the enactments of Parliament, and yet aspires to seat itself for ever, side by side, by its own supreme Government.

The Company have carried too far their confidence in the constitutional defence by which they hoped to ride in triumph over the executive Government. Their exorbitant pretensions have bred a new constitutional question to which the public mind is now turning. In their solicitude to fortify themselves with constitutional jealousies, they have constructed a formidable fortress, which threatens to embarrass the citadel of the state, and must therefore. of necessity awaken its jealousy. A change in the administration

of the Indian Government (should the Company finally provoke such a change,) need not necessarily throw the patronage of India into the hands of the Crown; means are to be found, by which that political and constitutional evil may be effectually guarded against. But if, through a precipitate assumption, that no such adequate substitute can be provided for the present system, Parliament should, at this critical moment, unguardedly yield to the demands of the Company, and give its sanction to their claims to a perpetuity of those privileges which they have hitherto been contented to receive with limitation, what difficulties would it not entail upon its own future proceedings? If the corporate overeignty of the Company is once absolutely engrafted upon the Sovereignty of the state, it cannot be extracted without lacerating the ancient stock, and convulsing the general system.

The Company would have done wisely, if, instead of resting their case upon pretensions erroneous in fact, inadmissible in law, and derogatory of the authority addressed, they had rested it wholly upon their own endeavours to promote the original purpose of their incorporation: namely, the honor of the Crown, and the advantage of the Commonwealth. Upon that ground the Company might have stood strong; and all that would then have remained for the consideration of Parliament, would have been a question, how those great interests could, under existing circumstances, be best advanced; either by continuing the present arrangement without alteration, or by modifying it in such particulars, as Parliament in its wisdom might judge to be necessary. But instead of this, they have taken ground upon high pretensions of right, which must necessarily provoke investigation; and we have discovered, in the foregoing inquiry, how far those pretensions are supported.

The determination of this great question, however, is now reserved for Parliament; and upon the wisdom of Parliament the Country may with confidence rely, for a full consideration of all the public rights, commercial as well as political; and likewise, for the final adoption of such an arrangement for the government and trade of India, as shall appear to be the best calculated to advance the real interests, and to promote the general prosperity of the Empire, both in the East and West. GRACCHUS.

THE following Letters, published in the Morning Post, are submitted to the Public in their present shape, under the recommendation of many intelligent persons, who strongly feel that if the measures about to be proposed to Parliament are suffered to pass into a law, the British territories in India must inevitably be lost to the mother country.

London, March 15, 1813.

Sir,

LETTERS OF PROBUS,

&c. &c.

LETTER I.

I

AM glad to observe that you have invited to the discussion of the important subject of a renewal of the East India Company's exclusive privileges, and have stated your intention to admit, into the columns of the Morning Post, all calm and dispassionate discussions on both sides of the question. On this account I now address you.

Having attentively considered the whole of the papers printed by order of the Court of Directors for the information of the Proprietors, I confess that I am at a loss to understand why the Executive Body should so strenuously insist upon the right of the Company to preclude the out-ports of the United Kingdom from the importation of commodities from the East, while a question of infinitely more importance to the welfare, and even to the very existence of that Company, yet remains in doubt.

The question to which I allude is this. The Directors assert, that their constituents have a right to the permanent possession of the British territories in India, "vested in them by the laws of this land," and of which they could not be deprived, even if the monopoly were altogether to cease. His Majesty's ministers, on the contrary, explicitly declare, that, at the expiration of the charter,

such right, if chosen to be exercised, is vested in the British Public, and not exclusively in the East India Company.

The following passages, on this great and very essential point, are taken from the printed papers.

"It will be unnecessary" (say the Chairman and Deputy, p. 10.) "to enter into any discussion of the right of the Company to the territorial possessions; a right which they hold to be clear, and must always maintain, as flowing from their acquisition of those territories, under due authority, and after long hazards, and vicissitudes, and great expense."

"It is certainly unnecessary" (says the President of the Board of Controul, in reply, p. 13) "to discuss the question of the Company's right to the permanent possession of the British territories in India. It is impossible that this right should be relinquished on the part of the public to the extent which has sometimes been maintained, and to which you seem to have adverted in the second article."

"But it may be observed here," (say the Chairman and Deputy, page 30)" and it is an observation which might be urged more formally and fully, that although the Company have the justest claim to those territories, which the powers vested in them by the laws of this land, the ability of their servants, and the hazards they have encountered, have enabled them to acquire; and that this right was never questioned, until the acquisitions, and consequently the merit of making them, became great; yet that, in a more peculiar sense, all the principal marts and factories of British India are their property, acquired in their purely commercial period, either with their money, or by grants from the native princes of the country, and that the power of admitting settlers and traders to them strictly belongs to the Company."

"The large concessions" (say the Chairman and Deputy, p. 110) "at first required from the Company by his Majesty's government, appear only to have encouraged the merchants of the outports to make still further demands, regardless, as it would seem, of the political consequences that might ensue from a compliance with them, and apparently unaware, too, that the corporate capacity of the East India Company is perpetual, and cannot be annulled, even if the qualified monopoly they have enjoyed

were to cease.

"The expediency of adhering to that system" (says the President of the Board of Controul, p. 172) "by which the government of India has been administered, through the intervention of the Company, is strongly felt by his Majesty's government; but it must not be supposed, that there are no limits to that expediency, or that there are no advantages which might result from a different course."