CONTENTS. Means alarm and dissatisfaction of the Court of Directors vii Page 502 CHAPTER IV. SAME PERIOD. Total change in the character of the Company's commercial operations after the Dewanny grant. Trade wholly carried on by means of supplies from revenue. Testimony of the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1783 on this head; and that the India trade in those days was a losing concern. Amount of surplus revenue, between 1761-2 and 1792-3, taken from Third and Sixth Reports of Committee of Secrecy in 1773 and 1782; and documents laid before Parliament by Mr. Dundas in 1793. Statements of Company's debts, and progress of the United Concern for the same period. Dissection of Company's asset accounts. Further proofs in refutation of evidence as to the Company's debts having originated in territorial causes. Amount of debts in 1793. 546 CHAPTER V. FROM 1792-3 TO 1828-9. Surplus revenue and territorial debt incompatible. Mr. Dundas's exaggerated view of the Company's affairs in 1793, and consequent appropriations of surplus revenue and profits. Reference to Acts of Parliament, to shew the embarrassed state of Company's affairs, between 1767 and 1793. Ditto, to 1810. Principles established in 1793, in respect to the Company's rights. Effect of uniting territory and commerce in the same hands. Amount of Company's trade between 1810-11 and 1828-9. Important omissions in the Company's habitual method of estimating commercial profit. Reference to the proceedings of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1809 to 1812, on the subject of the Company's financial affairs. Committee fully aware of the existence of surplus revenue in India :—yet decline to follow up the enquiry to its consequences. State of the United Concern, from 1813-14 to 1828-9. Appropriations by the Act of 1813. Separation of accounts. Remarks on No. 21, of "Papers relative to Finances of India, &c., Feb. 1830." Inference to be thence drawn. that the investments of this period were wholly supplied from revenue funds. Analysis of the revenue accounts presented to Parliament, from 1793-4 to 1828-9. General abstract Statement or Table exhibiting the result. Another method of exhibiting a large surplus on the preceding accounts. MR. WILKINSON'S REPORT. Containing a complete analysis of the same accounts, from 1793-4 to 1827-8, with Tables A. and B., exhibiting results fully confirmative of those given in the preceding chapter...... Concluding remark Page 590 669 779 INDIA. PART IV. ON THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S COMMERCE, AND ITS RESULTS. In treating of the Company's Commerce, it is not my intention to enter into details affecting particular exports or imports. Enough has been already said, in the many publications which have appeared on this subject, as to the various articles of effective demand. on either side, in the commercial intercourse between Europe and Asia; its capability of indefinite extension; the now unequivocally admitted taste of Asiatics for European com. modities; and the value of those products which India yields, and may further yield, in incalculable abundance, for the uses and consumption of this country. To enlarge on these topics, would only be to repeat what other writers have already explained; and it would be as little consistent with prudence, or policy, to weary readers of the present day with hacknied arguments on the evils of monopoly. There is, however, one question in the general range of those about to be discussed, which other writers have not touched, which I alone brought forward in 1813,* and which, if my view of the case be correct, must be conclusive as to the policy of continuing or discontinuing the Company's trade; and that is the origin, and present proper incidence, of the Company's debts. The East India Company have had, for nearly three quarters of a century, two concerns to administer; their political or territorial concern, and their commercial concern. The territorial head embraces every thing connected with the defence and administration of the government of India-every thing in short that is not commercial-and if it can be shewn that the revenues have been more than sufficient to defray every description of political or territorial charge, during the Company's administration, leaving a large surplus at the end of the period about to be reviewed; it follows, that as territorial debt, and surplus * Vide Rickards' Speeches, Part III., p. 224–238. revenue, are incompatible; such debts as may have been contracted during the period must necessarily attach to commerce. This, then, is the simple fact intended to be explained in the following pages. True, it is at variance with almost universal prepossessions and belief; but if the proofs about to be adduced shall be found to be incontrovertible, no plea can then remain for continuing a trade injurious in all its current operations, both to India and to England, and absolutely ruinous, in its results, to the East India Company itself. CHAPTER I. SHORT RETROSPECTIVE SKETCH OF THE EAST INDIA In the earlier periods of the Company's history, we have no precise statements of the actual condition of their affairs. It can only be collected from historical facts. The first East India Company was established by a charter of Queen Elizabeth, in December 1600, for fifteen years. They were constituted a body corporate, with exclusive privilege of trade; and soon after raised a 1600. |