Sitting of 18 July 1806

BARRACK Anuses.
The Secretary at Warrose to move for some papers in the barrack department, in order to disprove the assertions made by an hon. member (Mr. Robson) the evening before last. He accordingly moved for an account of the disposal of the sums received by the barrack-master-general for rent of canteens, at the several temporary barracks, and also for manure sold therefrom since 1793.
Mr. Robsonthought it most extraordinary, that it happened of late, that the papers which his majesty's ministers oppo-

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sed and refused, when called for by his motions, should, in an evening or two after, be moved for by themselves. He had another motion to bring forward on this subject on Monday, preparatory to which it was his wish, with the indulgence of the house, that the report of the committee of military enquiry, laid this night upon the table, and ordered to be printed, might be allowed to lie upon the table for another day, that he might have an opportunity of perusing it. If not, he must bring forward his motion in the best way he could without it. If the report was sent to the printer's, it was of such voluminous extent, that it could not be finished before the house would break up, and would not, of course, be seen by the members until the next session. But his object was to put as speedy a stop as possible to the system of peculation still going on, instead of suffering it to proceed, and turning to retrospective considerations in the first instance.
The Speakerinformed the hon. gent. that the report had been ordered to be printed, and it was not customary, when such an order was made, to interpose any delay, without a special order of the house.
Lord H. Pettyhoped the hon. member would have no objection to signify the nature and object of his motion for Monday.
Mr. Robsonanswered, that, as lie never wished to bring forward any matter of this nature without being grounded on statements made to him upon affidavit, he was not yet prepared to explain particulars. His object, however, was to detect and expose a system of the most flagitious peculation, still going on in the barrack department.
The Secretary at Warlaid on the table some copies of affidavits produced at the war-office, in vindication of the conduct of Mr. Atkins, late barrack-master of Sandown, in the Isle of Wight, pursuant to an order made on Mr. Robson's motion on Wednesday.
Mr. Paullhoped those papers would be printed for the perusal of the members, in order to vindicate the conduct and the honour of a much-injured gentleman, of whom though he knew nothing personally, yet he knew his character; that he was a gallant officer, and had served, with high distinction, in the West Indies last war; that he had received his appointment as barrack-master at the Isle of Wight, in consequence of a very high recommenda-
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tion of his character and services to his right hon. friend (Mr. Windham) ; that he bad conducted himself without the slightest blemish to his conduct or character in hat department, until he had disclosed to he head of it the peculations he had discovered, and solicited to be removed from Sandown to some other place, when he would make still more ample disclosures of delinquencies which came to his knowledge; then, and not before, charges were made against him by the party who had been injured in consequence of the discovery he had made; and he was dismissed without any opportunity being allowed him for his vindication, without being heard in his defence, or confronted with his accusers, as he had intreated. [Here Mr. Paull read a copy of a letter from Mr. Atkins to the secretary at war, acknowledging the receipt of his letter of dismissal, expressing his astonishment, and requesting to be confronted with his accusers; and the secretary's answer, declining that proceeding, and alleging it not to be the usage of the office.] Mr. Paull added, if this gentleman was to be dismissed for only making a disclosure which he conceived to be his duty; it others were not also dismissed upon the same ground, it must be considered a severe hardship and injustice inflicted upon an unfortunate gentleman with a family of six children, and to whom he thought some reparation ought to be made.
The Secretary at War answered, that it was to the barrack-master-general, and not to him, that Mr. Atkins ought to have appealed; and that the papers produced would contradict almost every word which had been alleged by the hon. gentleman.
Mr. Robsonthought it extremely severe and unjust to have punished Mr. Atkins upon the affidavit which was alleged as the ground of his dismissal, without hearing him in his defence, and when there were three other affidavits in direct contradiction to that upon which he was dismissed.—The papers were ordered to be printed.

FINANCIAL PROPOSITIONS.
Mr. Johnstonemoved the order of the day for resuming the debate upon the subject of his Financial Propositions; which order being read, the hon. gent. observed, that the resolutions which he had to move upon this subject differed so little front the state of the public debt, as laid down by the noble chancellor of the exchequer, and agreed so closely with his statements in all the general results, that it was hardly worth troubling the house by going into a minute detail on

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the subject. There were, however, one or two points which called for observation. On the commencement of the present war, a hope had been pretty strongly stated on the other side of the house, by a right hon. gent., that the war might be carried on without any new increase of the public debt; and yet it now appeared, that, notwithstanding the ample increase of revenue which had been voted as war-taxes, and the new heavy burthens imposed upon the country, the public debt had been increased 70 millions within the last four years, although the product of the war-taxes, within that time, had exceeded their estimates by two millions. He did not wish to expatiate farther upon this subject now, in the absence of the right hon. gent. (Mr. Vansittart), who had held out to the house and to the country this flattering hope, which he (Mr. J.) foresaw at the time was not likely to be verified. Another subject for observation was, that, notwithstanding the productive success of the war taxes, and the very advantageous loans that had been made since the commencement of the present war, yet, comparing the four years of the present war with the last four years of the preceding, it would appear, that the loans made in both were very nearly equal; for in the former, the sum borrowed in four years was 69 millions, and in the latter, 67 millions, while the quantity of stock at market remained still pretty much the same —The hon. gent. then proceeded to move his resolutions, which will be found in p. 1126.
Lord H. Pettyfelt it unnecessary to say any thing on the subject of the general resolutions of the hon. gent., as they so nearly accorded with the statement he had himself made; and, with respect to the accumulation of the public debt, in consequence of the exceedings of the war expenses beyond what was originally conjectured, he had only to say, that it must have been impossible to state inure than mere conjecture, as to what might be the probable expenses of a war, in the outset of which the possible chances and events, and, consequently, the true expense at which it must he impossible for human foresight to calculate upon any scale of accuracy: added to this, however accurate such calculations might be, they must be founded upon the rate of things as they stood at the time; but, every one must know, that the extraordinary and unexpected rise upon every necessary of life, and almost every article of supply, since
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that time, and the total change of character the war had assumed, especially in the late fortunate campaign upon the continent, expenses had accrued to an extent which was equally impossible, in the outset, for human wisdom to foresee, or to avoid.
Dr. Laurencemade a few observations the same effect; and said, the objections of the hon. gent. would be best answered by the reply quoted in a classic author, upon a similar occasion, "that war was a devouring animal, and would be restrained by no prescribed regimen." —The first six resolutions were then agreed to, and the debate on the Resolution respecting the the Unfunded Debt was adjourned to Monday.

INDIA BUDGET.
On the motion of lord Morpeth, the house, in a committee, resumed the debate on the India Budget.
Mr. T. Jonesasked, if there had been an adjustment of the sum of 2,672,440l. thus described, and in a paper moved for by him in 1801: "By what due from government for stores and supplies for his maesty's troops, &c. &c."
Lord Morpethreplied, that this account, blended with another, amounting to nearly 4 millions, was in a way of settlement, and some part of it had been allowed.
Mr. T. Jonesthen asked, how much of the 500,000l. per annum, as settled by the charter bill of 1793, had been paid by the Company to the public.
Dr. Laurencespoke to order. He thought it contrary to the rules of the house, that, when the question for their determination was only respecting a single year, any member should think himself at liberty to ask all manner of questions. When the debate was disposed of, he certainly might find opportunities enough of asking the noble lord any questions he might think proper.
Mr. Hobhouse(the chairman of the committee) considered that it was the custom upon India budgets, for the member who brought them forward, to take a very wide range into the general situation of the affairs of India, preparatory to moving his first resolution; and that, therefore, it was allowed to other members, to take a considerable latitude in speaking upon that question. As to the right of asking questions, he believed the rule was this: every member had a right to put questions; but the person to whom they were put, might answer them, or not, as he thought proper.
Mr. T. Jonessaid that, if the learned

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doctor wished to make a speech upon the subject himself, he should sit down with pleasure. He was prepared to meet him on every point which he had stated; and, the learned doctor was so famous for brevity, the house would, no doubt, be very much delighted with hearing him. If this was not the proper time to put his question, he should take another opportunity.
Dr. Laurencesaid, he might take whatever opportunity he pleased; and he need not expect that he would meet him on any of his points.
Mr. Paullsaid, that having, last February, found himself under the necessity, from a paramount sense of duty, of calling the attention of the house and the public, to the state of the Finances of India; and, as sentiments, on that important topic, were now before the house, in the form of a specific charge, he would forbear, on the present occasion, from entering fully into the subject; though the hon. general (sir A. Wellesley), and the noble lord (Castlereagh), had given ample room for discussion, by statements the most fallacious eve produced to any reasoning assembly; but, said the hon. gent., to refute such statements is the less necessary, as the noble lord, who brought forward the business had done ample justice to his (Mr. Paull's) sentiments, and had confirmed every assertion he had ever made on the melancholy state of India, rendered still more melancholy and desperate, by the immense sums shortly to be provided for in that unhappy country.—The hon. gent. paid the noble lord (Morpeth) some well-merited compliments, for the honest, honourable, and fair manner, in which he had brought forward the Budget: he had scorned deception; and his candour was as conspicuous as his talents were acknowledged. The noble lord had given the only fair statement that had been exhibited of the Finances of India for upwards of 20 years; and, for the whole of his conduct, he merited the thanks of every man in the kingdom. The noble lord had looked the prospect, dark and gloomy as it was, boldly and fairly in the face; and had scorned to delude the house with promises that were never to be fulfilled, and prospects of prosperity that never were to be realized. But, said Mr. Paull, the noble lord has still, Most unintentionally, omitted some most important items. On his own shewing, including the defalcations in the ceded provinces, the actual deficit, even on san-
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guine estimates, exceeds 3 millions sterl., the deficit, in the course of the next year, 1807, cannot be less; and, added to these two sums, making 6 millions, the decennial loan, amounting to 3½ millions; and two other loans, contracted for two years, at 10 and 12 per cent., and amounting to nearly a million, all become payable in 1808; so that, in that year, even taking the most favourable circumstances into account, the debt will be increased nearly 9 millions, and that in the 16th year of the Company's charter; and where is the man sanguine enough to say, that we shall then be on the peace establishment? But the fact is, we can have no peace establishment; from Cape Comorin, to beyond the walls of Delhi, our troops must be kept up, and scattered, to keep our subjests in awe, even if we have no enemy to contend with. An hon. gent. (Mr. Johnstone) has indulged himself, lately, in making frequent attacks on his majesty's ministers, for the removal of sir G. Barlow. Would that, instead, he had turned his attention to the state of the Finances of India, which no man knew better than he did; and had fairly and candidly admitted, that to measures acquiesced in by sir G. Barlow, for 8 years criminally acquiesced in, was to be attributed the present deplorable state of the East-India Company! As to the removal of sir G. Barlow, the hon. gent. can hardly be serious in his loud complaints on that subject; no man, either in India or in Europe, ever looked to sir G. Barlow's being permanent governor-general. The hon. gent. himself never could have imagined it even probable, that sir George would be allowed to continue; for he must know, that sir George, though an excellent revenue officer, had none of the qualities to fit him for governor-general; and that, to insure the respect of the foreign courts, a nobleman from England was in-dispensible for the good government of India. The hon. gent. had indulged in these attacks, from his hostility to ministers; and had neglected ever looking into the accounts which, perhaps wisely, he had not even touched upon, although the only subject regularly before, the house.—This, Mr. Paull said, he the more deplored, as no man in England understood the real situation of the Company better than the hon. gent. Mr. Paull concluded with again sincerely thanking the noble lord (Morpeth) for his clear, able, honest, and candid statement; and was sure, his lordship

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would feel that, by the line he had adopted, he had justly raised himself in the opinion of every honest man in the kingdom.
Mr. T. Joneshoped, that he should not be thought pertinacious; but he trusted, he should be allowed to make a few observations, as he stood pledged, in some degree, to the house, on this subject. He had, in 1801, stated, that the debt of the Company was 20 millions. This had now clearly turned out to be the fact. He had then met with a great deal of opprobrium, and was asked to have patience. He had had patience; and the result was, that the Company, as had been stated by an hon. Alderman (Prinsep), was on the eve of bankruptcy; and that their debt was nearer 40 millions than 30. He was, therefore, fully justified in what he had said; and the persons at the India board, whether they were called comptrollers or any thing else, would soon, it appeared, be only the assignees of bankrupts.
Mr. Johnstonesaid, that there was no danger of a bankruptcy. He would not enter upon the particulars of the accounts, however, as it was painful to him to look at the situation of the Company. But that situation was still not so gloomy as had been represented by the hon. gent. As to the loans, he hoped the persons who held them would renew their engagements. But he deprecated the transferring them to this country; and warned the directors, not to ask such a thing of parliament, for the minister of the day would be strongly tempted to grasp at a share of the patronage, which would be dangerous to the liberties of this country. He begged the house to consider, what would be the consequence of a patronage over 3,000,000l. sterling, in addition to what was already possessed by the government. Any inconvenience of trade was better than that the minister should acquire such an extraordinary power. He meant this as no particular reflection, but mentioned it as applying to any minister. As to the case of sir G. Barlow, his opinion was unaltered. Even though what the hon. gent. (Mr. Paull) had said should be correct, still his observations were proper. Ministers had gratuitously appointed him, on the 26th of February, and removed him 14 days after. Now, why was he appointed at all, if it was in contemplation to remove him so soon? All the powers of governor-general would have remained with him, by devolution, till the appointment of a suc-
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cessor, except the power of exercising the highest functions of the office without the consent of the council—a power so extraordinary, that it had never been exercised. The charge, therefore, remained in full force.
Sir A. Wellesleyconsidered the bon. member (Mr. Paull) was completely wrong, in supposing, that so large a sum as 10 millions was to be due in 1807. He shewed, from a variety of calculations, that the greater part of this sum would not be due until the years 1809 and 1810. If there was a large floating debt at the end of the war, there were, also, floating securities in the hands of the Company, which balanced it. He denied, that the loans in India had been contracted for on such unfavourable terms as the hon. gent. had represented.
Mr. Paullsaid, that the reason that the loan appeared to be contracted on better terms in India than it really was, was, because above two-thirds of it was contracted at Lucknow and Benares, where the value of the rupee was considerably less than the Calcutta rupee. The interest of the debt being paid in Calcutta rupees, and the principal contracted in the rupees of Lucknow and Benares, it made the real interest from 12 to 14 per cent., instead of 8. He contended, that the Company actually owed 6 millions to the country, on account of the 12 years arrears of the half million annually; for which consideration their charter was renewed. India had, ever since, been a drain to this country, both in men and money; and not a single advantage had been derived from the possession. He was sure that, at the time the charter was last renewed, no one had the most distant idea, that it would ever be renewed again, except on terms much more advantageous; but, if they could not pay half a million, they could not pay more, and Great Britain would be the only country prohibited from trading to India, and this without any sort of consideration.
Mr. Grantin general, vindicated the accounts which he had brought forward on the second night, see p. 1153. With respect to the amount of the Indian Debt, he continued of opinion, that considerable arrears of the expences of the two wars, in which we had recently been engaged, remained still to be brought to account. The experience of former wars, carried on upon a less extensive scale, justified this opinion; and he was, upon the whole, persuaded, that it was reasonable to estimate the Debt, on

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the 30th of April, 1806, at 30 millions sterling, after allowing for the purchases made by the Sinking Fund. As to the Sinking Fund, he had admitted it to have aided in improving the credit of the Company's paper; but maintained, still, that the establishment of that scheme, constituted as the fund was, circumstanced as were the affairs of the Company, and pledged as the Company were, to apply every valuable surplus of their revenues to the discharge of Debt, was liable to objections which outweighed any incidental benefit resulting from it. That no considerable part of the Indian Debt was to be charged to the commerce of the Company, he contended to be satisfactorily proved by the documents he bad adduced on a former night; documents framed with great care, by the able officers of the India-house, and founded on fuller and more accurate materials, than those statements could well be, with which the hon. general had been furnished, and which had, by him, been quoted to the house. How to account for the great difference between the hon. general's statements and his, he was at a loss, unless the hon, general had omitted to give credit for bills drawn on England on account of Debt, on a supposition, that the payment of debt not contracted by lord Wellesley, ought not to be charged in the accounts of his administration; but the omission would not be warranted on this ground, because, in the question of accounts between India and England, the only fair way was, to charge all that was paid, and credit all that was received. The hon. general said, the bills drawn for the payment of Debt had been credited for; but admitted, that his statements did not give credit for the political charges defrayed by the Company in England; which, with the other payments made there on account of the territorial possessions, would, in a great degree, account for the balance which the hon. general thought chargeable to the commerce. At the same times, Mr. Grant expressed his willingness, that a very strict scrutiny should be made into the state of account between the revenue and the commerce, as far as it was possible to separate them, in order that this question might be determined and set at rest—As to the prospect of future revenue and savings, which the hon. general bad stated, and which another hon. gent. (Mr. Keene) carried much higher, Mr. Grant observed, that taking credit for future expectations was not the most satis-
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factory way of compensating for the past. Hitherto, the recently-conquered provinces were not even estimated to produce beyond trifle more than the disbursements incurred on account of them;—provinces which had cost so much blood and treasure in the acquisition. Calculations founded on future receipts of revenue must be liable to uncertainty; and the surest dependence was, that of retrenching expence.
Mr. T. Jonessaid, that his object, in interrogating the noble lord (Morpeth) was, to save his trouble, and that of the house; but, more particularly that of the noble lord, who had given a fair and accurate, however to be lamented, Budget, and was now sitting to hear the third discussion on it, left quite alone, both. by his majesty's ministers, and such directors of the East-India Company as were members of parliament: that, by getting answers to his questions, he should see what alteration, for the better or worse, had taken place since his speech and statement, delivered in that house, June 25, 1802, thereon. But, however, as he did not wish to be pertinacious, as to putting questions, he should state facts: Now, in 1800, up to the 30th of April, the India Debt was 20 millions. Out of the 6,000,000 l. due on the charter; only 500,000 l. had been paid; so that 5,500,000 l. remained due to the public. In 1801, the hon. gent. said, he had stated the East-India Company to be on the eve of bankruptcy. In 1806, he was borne out by the uncontradicted assertion of a worthy alderman (Prinsep), that it was in a state of insolvency. The difference between insolvency and bankruptcy was a distinction without a difference, and not to be argued; and, therefore, he said, instead of the eve of bankruptcy, he considered the Company in a positive state of bankruptcy; and soon, very soon, the noble lord and his colleagues, instead of being "comptrollers," would be "assignees," under a commission of bankruptcy.
Mr. H. Martincommented on the construction of the act by which the Company held their charter; and said, that it clearly appeared from it, that when the Company were in straitened circumstances, the payment was only suspended, and they now were debtors to the public for 6 millions. The only excuse must be, their inability to pay; and he hardly thought that this excuse would be resorted to, as it would amount to a confession, that they had been insolvent ever since the year 1793.
Mr. Hudlestortrose and said:—Sir, the strictures which an hon. member opposite (Mr. T. Jones) has been pleased to address to me on the conduct of some of my colleagues for their absence from the house on this occasion, it is not difficult to answer. My colleagues, sir, have been occupied to day for 7 or 8 hours by very important public duties in another place. They know also that the statements before the house contain full and accurate information relative to the finances of the East India Company; and they were aware that whatever further explanation might be required, no one is more able to give than my hon. friend, the late chairman, who would, in all probability, he present in his place at this discussion. For my own part, sir, I confess I came down to the house for the purpose of offering some observations on the speech of au hon. alderman (Prinsep) who the other evening entered so largely into the subject of the Company's commerce, and with views so obvious respecting it; and on part of the speech of the noble lord who so ably followed him, and I shall now endeavour to submit those observations to the house. With respect to the facts assumed by the worthy alderman, it is not necessary to dispute them. Without stopping to enquire into their validity, it may be sufficient to examine the structure he would build upon them in a fair comparison with that which he would overthrow. Such an examination, I am confident the hon. alderman can never have made, for, if he had, it would have enabled him to take a more enlarged view of the subject, and convinced him that the view he had before taken of it was narrow and fallacious. Hitherto the hon. alderman seems to have looked at the commerce of the East India Company through a peculiar sort of glass, which has possessed the property of hiding all its great and leading features, and all the benefits which it diffuses. The loss which he supposes the Company to sustain by their trade forms the grand foundation of his argument, to that point therefore I shall immediately direct my attention, by claiming of him what I am sure his candour will readily admit, namely, that the loss is principally, if not entirely, confined to the exports. I shall then remind the worthy alderman, and solicit the attention of the committee, to the momentous fact, that from the provision of those exports many thousands of the community derive their subsistence, and
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are enabled by it to contribute their proportion of the public burthens, instead of being themselves burthens on the state. To illustrate this, I will take that article of the Company's exports on which the ascertained loss comprises a very great part of the guilt which the alderman charges to the whole of their commerce—I mean the article of woollens; and to what is it owing that the Company sustain that loss? Why, literally, sir, to their consulting the public interests in preference to their own—to their exporting annually woollens to the enormous amount of 1,300,000l. by which the Company sustain very great loss, but the public gain in a still greater proportion; for the provision of those woollens gives employment to more than 40,000 persons: And until lately this was not all, for the Company virtually paid a penalty for rendering this benefit to the state, in the shape of a duty of 4l. per cent. which was afterwards increased to 5l per cent. and amounted annually to upwards of 50,000l. Even before that duty was imposed, it was a losing trade. We know, that in the last 4 years, the loss on the woollens sent to China alone exceeded 100,000l. in each year; and from the progressive advance in the price of labour, and of the raw material, both native and foreign, this loss is increasing; for time China trade differs from all others in this essential respect, that the China merchants themselves fix the prices, and the same that were fixed many Nears ago still continue, notwithstanding the advance in the cost of the woollens here. Two points, then, are clear; 1st, that nothing but a disposition to promote the manufacturing interests of this country in preference to their own, could induce the East India Company to export woollens to such an extent; for in respect to China they could obtain a more favourable remittance in silver; and 2d1y, that were the Company to seek other modes of remittance, the consequences would be dreadful to the manufacturing and the labouring poor in the counties of Gloncester, Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall, and in the city of Norwich; it would also operate the ruin of several extensive establishments in this metropolis, and deprive more than 700 persons of a respectable subsistence which they now derive from the East India Company. Now, sir, I think I have a right to ask the hon. alderman whether his trade, or that to which he is partial, could bear this loss, or afford to the public this

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benefit. Perhaps he will the goodness to inform the committee of the quantity of woollens annually exported to India by trader, or the aggregate of the quantity exported by all of them. I have stated only the benefit which the public derive from one article in one branch, of the Company's commerce; but, if the worthy alderman would take that view of the commerce of the East India Company, which I have been accustomed to take of it, it would appear to him as a vast edifice, erected on a solid foundation, which for ages withstood the fury of the elements, and given shelter to millions of people, which through every vicissitude has been the firm and constant friend, as well as child, of the state, and made an ample return for the uniform protection it received. In the provision of a single article, as I have just stated, it gives employment to 40,000 persons. The exchequer derives from it annually three millions sterling duties and customs. It employs about. 10,000 British seamen, and thus nourishes for the state a great portion of that force on which its safety essentially depends. It assisted in acquiring, and has assisted in preserving, our dominion in India. At a memorable and Critical era, the enemy's squadron was totally defeated in the Ganges by the ships of the East Company—an event that materially contributed to lay the foundation of all our subsequent greatness. On various occasions since, they have assisted in fighting the battles of the state, and particularly off Pondichery, in October, 1778, two of our Indiamen shared in the glory of forcing the French squadron to leave that fortress to its fate. I am sure the committee must anticipate my alluding to a more recent event in the China seas, in which the ships of the East India Company under the brave and able conduct of their commanders, furnished an argument in favor of the Company's commerce that will not soon be forgotten, and at this moment it will not be denied that the commerce of the East India Company supplies no inconsiderable portion of the force destined for the defence of this Capital in case of invasion.—sir, the list of his majesty's navy bears testimony in favour of the commerce of the East India Company. And need I ask if the utility of this commerce is to be judged of by the balance of the head of profit and loss in the ledger? or if it be any reproach to tins commerce that all which I have stated has not been
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accomplished without the aid of the Indian revenue? certainly I am not prepared to say that the Company's commerce could go on without that aid, on tie contrary I believe the commerce and the revenue to be necessary to each other, and their continued union to be essential to the vital interests of the state. Some years ago the worthy alderman and his friends brought forward another, and very captivating argument, against the Company's commerce, and in favour of their own, but I know not if he has recurred to it on this occasion, not having been able to get down to the house the other evening until he had made considerable progress in his speech, viz. the idea of bringing all the trade of India to the river Thames, and making London the grand emporium of Asiatic commerce. This was certainly a magnificent project, and only two objections weigh with me against it. First, that it is impracticable; and secondly, that if practicable, it would be unwise to effect it. Most of the maritime powers of Europe possess, or on the return of peace will probably again possess, ports and commercial factories in India. On the coast of Malabar, and from Cape Comorin to the Ganges, are those of the French, Dutch, Danes, and Portuguese, who are all as sensible of the Value of a trade with India as we are, and their merchants as eager in the pursuit of gain, only less enterprizing than ours. Is there then any rational hope that we can exclude foreigners from tins trade, or prevail on them to relinquish it, and consent to receive the produce of India only through the port of London? But I have said that, if practicable, it would not be wise to effect it, mid here I would entreat of the worthy alderman to forget for moment his commercial character, and to consider this point only as a member of the state, and when in that capacity he shall have weighed it maturely, combining with it our present situation, and acquisitions in India, I would ask him, if no considerations occur to his mind as adverse to our obtaining for ourselves so invidious a preference? I would beg of him to state how much he thinks we can afford to lose of the reputation we possess with foreign powers for moderation and liberality in what relates to our commercial, and naval interests, and preeminence. — Sir, there is one other consideration which I shall merely glance at: some persons I know are not sufficiently aware of its importance, but no reflecting mind not warped by views of private or pecuniary interest, will over-

1205
look it, or deem it visionary: it applies equally to the system of Indian commerce favoured by the worthy alderman, and to the late system of conquest and extension of territory in India. At present I shall confine myself to the former. The system desired by the worthy alderman, would substitute in the Indian trade, ships built in India for ships built in England; Teak ships for Oak; the Lascar, or Indian sailor for the British tar; mid the Ganges for the Thames. The home of his trade is India and it would sot m make India the home of thousands of artificers, agents, and adventurers of all descriptions. At every out-port and subordinate factory, there would be a European public, and in the space of 60 or 70 years the number of Europeans in India, would exceed the number of British Americans in north America when that country declared its independence. Can there be any doubt then of the direct tendency of such a system, if established in regions so munch more distant from the mother country? The opinion entertained on this subject by a late truly illustrious person—illustrious for his virtues even more than for his services, may be collected from the following short passage in one of his letters dated in November 1794; "I am strongly impressed with a conviction that it will be of essential importance to the interests of Britain that Europeans should be discouraged, and prevented as much as possible, from colonizing, and settling in our possessions in India." Whether the utmost human wisdom can do more than delay the event against which the noble marquis meant to guard, is a question beyond our reach; but it requires no gift of prophecy to be able to pronounce with conscious certainty, that the laying open the trade to the public would accelerate it by at least half a century, and under that conviction, I should have felt it my duty to submit to the committee these observations on the speech of the hon. alderman, even if there had been no other objection to the system which it is his object to recommend, and without alluding to au argument that I am sure would of itself be sufficient to secure its rejection, viz. the injustice it would operate on the East India Company; but if I differ from the worthy alderman in almost all his deductions, and inferences, from the facts he laid down, I am as little able to concur with the noble lord who followed him in the debate, I mean in his limited view of the existing evils, and his mode of accounting for
1206
the vast increase of our Indian debt, and the sole remedy which he has suggested for the consideration of the committee. The noble lord seems consider our present financial difficulties as the only evil we have to overcome, and war as the only cause, and the remedies he proposes are of course equally confined; whereas, in my view of our present situation in India, were our debt to be this moment extinguished, very serous evils would still remain; but, even adopting the-noble lord's view of the subject, and supposing it only necessary at present to advert to the immediate cause, or causes of the deranged state of our finances in India, it would still be impossible for me to acquiesce in the noble lord's statement of 13 years of war as the cause of that derangement. Two years ago I heard a similar argument from the right hon. gent. whose loss is so justly deplored, and I heard it then with equal surprize; because I well knew that during 5 or 6 of the 10 years which he spoke of, the continent of India had not been in a state of war, and that correctly speaking the war in India commenced in 1798, after the arrival of marquis Wellesley. The noble lord I am sure had too much candour to contend, that the march of a detachment to take possession of Pondicherry, where there was not a shot fired, nor an enemy capable of making the least resistance constituted war in the only sense in which the argument could apply. Several other expeditions were projected, in which the East India Company had no more interest than any other corporate body: such expenditions indeed, by withdrawing their troops from the continent of India, and carrying them to unhealthy climes, are worse then useless to the Company; they occasioned however a large expenditure, for the whole amount of which the Company have a just claim on government, as I shall at all times be prepared to prove, but amount, large as it is, forms but a small part of the enormous increase in our Indian expenditure and debt.—The peace of Seringapatam concluded with Tippoo Saultaun by lord Cornwallis, was signed the beginning of March 1792, and from the period till the year 1798, the peninsula of India was undisturbed by war; but when the noble lord spoke of 13 years if war, as if Indian debt had been progressively encreasing each of those years, he must have, forgotten the decisive fact, that, in 2 of the first 6 years, the Indian debt, instead of encreasing, diminished; viz. that in 1794, it

1207
was less by upwards 700,000l. than in 1793; and in 1795, upwards of 500,000l. less than in 1794, and that in 1796, tho' a little more than in 1795 the debt was still nearly 900,000l. less than in 1793, when, as is well known to the noble lord, its amount was 8 millions; from that year (1793) to 1798, the increase was only 3 millions; it then we suppose with the noble lord, that the 5 intervening years were years of war, what does that fact express with regard to the expenditure of the succeeding 7 years; viz. from 1798 to 1805; during which, according to the estimate on the table, the Indian debt has accumulated from 11 millions to 26½ millions? for although the noble lord spoke of 13 years, which must include the present year,I imagine his meaning went to no later period than to April 1805, which is the latest to which the usual estimate of the Indian debt is brought up but if the noble lord wishes to bring it up to the present time, I fear several millions must be added to that estimate. The committee will judge therefore whether the present embarrassed state of the Company's finances can with accuracy be ascribed to 13 years of war, and it is at least highly important and just that the committee should be aware, that of the 18½ millions added to the Indian debt since the year 1793, three millions only, were contracted before the year 1798.—That this enormous increase in the Indian debt has been principally occasioned by the late war in India, there can he no doubt, but it war alone could produce so great a change in the state of our finances, what would have been our situation after the war which began in 1779, and ended in 1784, in which we had to contend in India with the French and the Dutch, the Marattas and Hyder Ally? between which too and the late war there was this striking difference, viz. that our own districts were the seat of war, and by far the greater part of the Carnatic for a considerable time in the possession of the enemy; yet, at the conclusion of that war, the Company's debt in India, I believe, amounted only to 6 or 7 millions. Whereas the late war in India was carried on in the territories of the enemy, and our own felt none of its calamities, except that during a few weeks an adventurer, named Dundeah, committed depredations in shore of the Mysore districts. This is well known to the hon. general opposite (sir Arthur Wellesley) who himself so ably conducted the war in the Deckan, and to whose military prowess is most
1208
essentially to he attributed its successful issue, and its not having been carried into our own districts. Doubtless there are expences incident to a state of war, although the troops may not be actually in the field; and the war in Europe by giving birth to the maritime expeditions I have alluded to, contributed essentially to the reduction of the surplus revenue; but it made no other very considerable addition to our Indian expenditure, for, owing to the vigilance of government, and the vast superiority of our navy, not a French soldier landed in India. If then I were to he asked, to what causes the present state of our finances in India were to be attributed, I should answer, that they might be traced to a system of policy which sought the aggrandisement and extention of the British empire and influence in India, through the medium of what is called the system of subsidiary alliances, or the bringing all the native states into subjection to, or dependence on the British power, by means of large bodies of troops stationed in their respective capitals, with agents or ministers, on the part of the Company, to watch and direct their political conduct. This system became the fruitful parent of an extended war, on an extended scale of expence, and a corresponding system of finance and general expenditure; in both of which economy was overlooked, or perhaps did not seem necessary; for one of the effects of this system was a vast nominal increase of revenue by the necessity of exacting from each native prince a subsidy for defraying the expence of the troops stationed in his capital. These subsidies, whether in money, or commuted for an equivalent in territory, occasioned a great apparent increase of revenue, and every extention of our territory or revenue being supposed to bring with it a proportionate extention of our means of paying, produced a real alteration in the scale of ideas and expectations, and unfortunately the increased expenditure by new establishments, and new or augmented salaries and allowances, not being made conditional, or dependent on the continuance of a surplus revenue, remained after the surplus had ceased to exist. Such I believe to have been, in abstract, the combined causes of the present embarrassed state of our finances in India; hut, do I therefore concur in the position which the hon. alderman has so industriously laboured to impress upon the committee, namely, that the East India Company is insolvent? No, sir, I deny that the Company is insolvent, or that our present pecu-

1209
niary difficulties will make us so, unless we continue in the course which has brought them upon us. How then are our finances to be retrieved, and what is to be done? Why, sir, if there is a determined disposition to retrieve them on both sides the Atlantic, they may and will be retrieved by measuring back our steps to those systems, both political and financial, from which we ought never to have departed; in a word, the system and principles of Cornwallis; by disavowing all views of extending our dominion and influence in India, and in proof of the sincerity of the disavowal, relinquishing the acquisitions both in territory and alliances, which have been made under them; and lastly, by contracting the number of our vast and expensive establishments, and the scale of those which it may be necessary to continue. The work, both in respect to policy and finance, we have reason to believe is already begun, and if persevered in with firmness and decision, will effect the re establishment of a surplus revenue, and the gradual reduction of the Indian debt; but it will be in vain to hope for such effects from any other means than those which I have stated: other measures may be resorted to in aid of those means, but if attempted without them, will only aggravate the existing evils, and perhaps render them insurmountable; but least of all can those effects be produced by the adoption of the advice Of the hon. alderman, for which, however, I do not presume to censure him, as it is the result of opinions which he has long habitually cherished; with the view which he takes of the subject I am not surprized that the annihilation of the Company's commerce, and the substitution of the private trade in the place of it, which to my mind present the most ruinous consequences to the East India Company, the public, and even the traders themselves, should to him seem fraught with benefits to all of them; but, differing so widely as I do from the worthy alderman, I have felt anxious to submit to the committee my impressions on the whole subject, and I have now to assure them that nothing but my sense of its extreme importance could make me venture on so long an intrusion on their time.
Mr. Alderman Prinseprose to reply. He began with observing, that after the long indulgence with which he had been honoured in a former part of the debate, he felt it his duty to abridge as much as possible, what he had to say further on the subject; and here he must acknowledge his obligation to two hon. members (Mr. Paull and
1210
Mr. Robson), and also to another hon. member (Mr. Francis) who had volunteered in his support. For himself, he had long fought this battle single handed, and had thrown himself alone into "the imminent and deadly breach," with truth for his standard, facts for his buckler, and the powerful and never failing auxiliaries of cause and effect: What but a reliance on such auxiliaries, could have sustained him against the influence and resentment of the most powerful public body upon earth, or induced him to sacrifice personal ease, and perhaps the interests of a large family, to the prosecution of a great public object, the assertion of national right to a natural share of the British trade with its Indian dependencies.—The causes of the Company's situation, which he had so long and so often exposed, had now produced the fatal consequences he had predicted, and dire distress and necessity were irresistibly forcing a change of system and a call for relief.—It had given him much satisfaction to hear the hon. director, who had just sat down, admitting without reserve, all the facts he had stated on a former night, although the hon. gentleman had differed as much with regard to the conclusions drawn from them, as he had misunderstood the views and objects of their exposure. The hon. director had represented him to have contrasted the present system, with the probable consequences of separating trade and revenue with no other view than that of obtaining the abolition of the Company's charter from selfish and personal motives, when in fact he had merely stated the four active capitals requisite for conducting, even on its present scale, the Company's trade, and the total want of any such commercial resource; in order fiat to prove that Indian interest attached to every operation, and if it did attach, the hon. director well knew, that all alledged profit on the trade was done away. —The next object was to show the necessity of allowing British subjects to carry on that trade, which the Company had no faculty of embracing, not to confine it to a few old commercial houses tilt each side the water, but to enable all the merchants, manufacturers and ship owners at home and in India, to compete with foreigners in carrying it on, not in the wild and extravagant idea of rendering Great Britain the emporium of all the products even of British Asia, but in the sober contemplation, of securing to the mother country that natural proportion of the traffic, of which

1211
she was deprived by the impolitic restriction under which the private trader to and from India had laboured and continued to labour —The hon. alderman next observed, that he had been charged with expatiating widely on the little value of an item of 10 millions, stated by the company themselves, a. composed of bad debts, old buildings, old furniture, and other article, which sum their own accountant had struck out of the balance sheet, and estimated at 400,000l.; was it unjust, as he had observed on a former night, to scrutinize such an asset, when adduced as a probable future claim upon government, and as part those resources, on the security of which a noble lord had proposed that the house should advance 17 millions of money? Was it invidious to suppose a case possible, in which government might he obliged to resume its lease of the territories, and dissolve a partnership ruinously unprofitable to both parties of the firm? Would his majesty's ministers, or would they not, be justified in opposing to such claims, the 5 minions and a half they had awl were to pay for defending India since 1804:—the expenses of the Cape and Ceylon, the charge of two squadrons in the eastern seas, and the pay of 25 regiments employed in acquiring and protecting the dominions in question?—But the Company, it was asserted, had estates abroad of great value, of which they could not be deprived; how far it would be politic to retain them, would appear by looking at the expence of these estates; at that of time island of Bombay, for instance, where 764,994l. had been expended beyond the product of farm, licences, and quit rents; at that of St. Helena, which exceeded in the sum of 47,628l. as appeared by the accounts of 1802–3; at the value of the villages round Madras and Masulipaturn; at their factory charges of Bencoolen, and above all, at their more recently purchased island Penang where halt a million was likely to be squandered on time wild project of making an arsenal, that could never he defended; of keeping a garrison where there were no provisions, and erecting docks where there was neither tide to float the vessels, nor workmen or materials for their construction or repair. As well might the Company resume their possessions at Balem, Bangam, and the Andamans, and call them profitable estates, as retain any thing of landed property, after they should lose the revenues at large. The Dutch and French retained indeed their factories in our terri-
1212
tories, the one for the sake of patronage, for a few favoured families of the Aristocracy, the other from a political motive of disturbing our influence: neither were profitable, on the contrary, the Dutch Company had become bankrupts, from the expences they had thus incurred, and the French would never resume theirs, but from a determined enmity to our prosperity in India. These estates therefore, were addition to the amount of their assets, in the stock by computation.— But this Imperial Company, it was said, exported from patriotic motives, vast quantities of woollens, at an enormous loss. The hon. director, who as well as the hon. ex-chairman, always carefully blended the India aural China trade together, had vauntingly boasted of this immense export of woollens, and stated the heavy loss thereon as a sacrifice to the manufacturers of this country; the former had asked, what would become of time 40,000 British hands now employed, were the Company to throw up that trade. In the first place, the Alderman observed, that no idea had ever been entertained by him, of invading the exclusive trade to China; it was, if any national trade could be, the properest of all subjects for monopoly. In fact, no great quantity of woollens were, or ever would be, consumed in British India, none were exported thither, except for Sepoy's cloathing, and the limited wear of Europeans. The argument therefore in this point of view fell to the ground. The fact was, that China was super-saturated with the Company's woollens, and that this circumstance had kept down the price. A reference to the director's own report on this branch of the trade, would set right the noble lord and his colleagues respecting the cause and extent of loss on this item.—But granting that British subjects did interfere, would that interference lessen the exportation if there were any demand? would it not rather occasion a greater employ of the manufacturers of Devon, Yorkshire? and Gloucestershire? This thread-bare topic had long ceased to convince men of the policy of shutting out British subjects from India, and allowing neutrals to rival us in our own natural colonial trade; to load their Ships under Our noses at every port of the united kingdom; to range unmolested from pole to pole; and even buy and sell at our Indian factories, on the same terms as the Company's privileged captains and officers of the regular ships. Here the Alderman desired the committee to look at the total ex-

1213
port of the Company to India, for the 11 years past. He had moved for this important paper, separate front the China exports; it was presented on the 5th June, and would be seen in page 94 of the Budget accounts. During the 11 last years the total export of merchandize in the first column, instead of the immense sum the last Speaker had asserted it to be, the committee would be surprised to find amounted, as he had correctly stated on a former night, to no more than 5,044,960l. little above 450,000l. per annum. (In 1794–5 it was only 133,000l.) The Company's tonnage for their India trade was only 9,822 tons on 12 ships; and, including that for private trade last year, was only 25 ships, or 17,08l tons. He compared this with the tonnage of Barbadoes, and that of a single Dutch colony, Surinam, which loaded home last year 16,493 tons. Was this, he repeated, the natural share of India trade, which the mother country was entitled to? observe, he said, the striking contrast between imperial and individual energy; by the document on the table it appeared, that in 1799–1800 the whole of the Company's export to India was only 463,578l. and this exceeded the average of the 11 years to which he had before alluded. In the same year, by an authenticated paper, laid before Mr. Dundas and to be found in an able publication of a gentleman deceased (Mr. Henchman) it appeared, that 20 India built ships, wisely licenced by the noble lord (Wellesley), an act fully justified by him in a dispatch to the directors, actually carried back merchandize from London to the amount of 615,247l. 12s. 6d. and expended here in repairs and dis bursments 202,877l. although two of the number were laden back by government, and this besides wine taken in at Madeira train British merchants there. Who then, he emphatically exclaimed, are the enemies to the manufacturers, shipbuilders, and ship-owners, to the traders and merchants of these kingdoms? himself and those who thought with him, or the directors of the India company? Were the people of Sheffield and Birmingham more likely to starve, if a freer intercourse subsisted with the millions of people in our own Indian territories, and a trade were opened with the myriads who inhabited regions within the Company's limits ; regions which they never had it in contemplation to visit, much less to supply with their instant demands, and with the growing wants, which a knowledge
1214
of our manufactures would create. —The honourable director had re-echoed against him, the charges of personal motives and attachment to a favourite project of introducing India shipping to the injury of the British artisan; but, would opening the India trade, that trade which the company could not carry on, would giving facility to that trade be likely to confine it to half a dozen established English houses abroad, and himself and four or five India agency houses in London? certainly not, on the contrary it would open India to the British merchant, trader, and ship-owner, without distinction or preference, whether at Liverpool, Bristol, Leith or Glasgow, Dublin or Cork; it would injure, not the Company, as was dreaded, but only the privileged neutral rivals, whose operations he had already in part developed, and should farther expose in the next session.—So much with regard to any selfish object on his part; he should next proceed to notice the danger of removing our artizans, (ship-builders he presumed were meant,) out of this kingdom to our dominions in Asia. But did there, he would ask, exist any want of ship-builders abroad? At Penang (Prince of Wales Island) it was true, there were neither workmen, nor materials, neither revenues, nor provisions, but was that the case at Bombay, on the Malabar coast, or at Calcutta? were not ships built there by British subjects? were none built at Pegue or Demaur, by Burmaks and parsecs? was it not a notorious fact, that ship-building materials of every kind super-abounded in our own territories? that they no less abounded in artisans, and master-builders of the first eminence to put them together? was it not then sound policy for this government to encourge the extraction of these materials, and indeed of every other resource, Which dependencies dearly acquired, and of such precarious tenure, would furnish to the mother country? would it not he sound policy to build ships there for government, which might partly pay for their construction by a freight home, and to compel the Company to build there for their own commerce, and leave the oaklings of our home forests to acquire their natural growth? Would the ship-builders of Blackwall, or of any other yard, complain of such a necessary expedient? did they not candidly acknowledge, and every ship-owner feel, that the expence, and of course the profits, of refitting and repair, exceeded these of original construction; that materials were grown so scare and dear at

1215
home, that no merchant vessel could be built to sail against neutrals, nor any India-man be allowed to arrest the inefficient and scanty supply of our own timber for the royal navy? was not the contract price of building for the king's service more than doubled within these few years? Could the commissioners obtain contracts at all to the extent required?— These facts made most completely against the Director's assertions.—The honourable Director had next brought forward, the Company's trade, as a nursery for British seamen, and deprecated the employ of India shipping, as injurious to that object. In the first place, he would ask, by whom are the Company's ship's now manned, and likely to be both in peace and war, while our enemy was attempting to rival us on the seas: By foreigners mostly when outward bound, and back principally by Lascars, natives or subjects of British India. Which of these classes deserved most to be encouraged he need not ask; our commerce as now become too much the nursery for seamen of other countries, and unless care was taken hereafter, most of our British sailors would become Americans.— It was not interest, but necessity that ever induced the employ of black sailors on board the merchant ships, the greater number of them required, in proportion to the tonnage, made it always cheaper to navigate with European, and most of all with British seamen. But, if any preference was due, the British Lascar ought in policy to be preferred to Danish or American sailors.—The honourable Director had paid a just tribute to the skill and gallantry of the men who navigated the Company's ship, and of those who commanded them. No man, said the Alderman, had an higher opinion of them, than himself, they were the best seamen and the first navigators in the world; they had distinguished themselves against Suffrein under Watson in 1778, and the last glorious instance of gallantry in the China seas, under captain Dance, would for ever endear them to their country. But how that establishment was supported, or merit and seniority regarded, he would not stop to enquire. In nothing, he said, was there any design to deprive the Company of their shipping, nor of that trade they were able to carry on, which trade ought to maintain its own maritime establishment.—The noble lord had fairly stated the expansion of the double system of trade and dominion, to
1216
have called for a greater amount of fixed and floating assets, than had formerly been requisite, but where among them was to be found any capital applicable to trade? In all the Budget speeches, the surplus revenue and the product of exports were expressly mentioned as the amount applicable to investment, the rest at any rate was borrowed for the purpose, as the noble lord himself had confessed in his last Budget statement (page 35) " The question" says he "that will naturally be suggested on this occasion, is, as to the prudence or propriety of investing so large an amount in goods, when the surplus from the revenue is estimated so low; as the system of providing funds for this purpose by new loans has been often objected to."—Mr. Dundas in 1801 had made use of these words: "The question must naturally arise, from whence funds could be derived to meet demands to so considerable an amount, to which I shall merely now reply, that, in whatever amount the supplies from Europe in bullion and the cash received for bills on the court of directors were found deficient, money was raised on loans, as will appear in the increase of the Indian debt."—The Alderman here affirmed, that notwithstanding all assertions to the contrary, much the greater part, if not all that debt, had been created by the trade. The exclusive system, according to the honourable Director, embraced great political objects, it ought not therefore to be judged of on the narrow principles of a profit and loss trade; this the Alderman observed might possibly be rational doctrine, if the revenues were able to make good the deficiencies in trade; but, had that been the case? on the contrary, the Indian debt had encreased as the commerce extended, nor had the hon. ex-chairman, the noble lord, the hon. general (Wellesly) nor the Director himself been able to show any solid capital on which the trade had been supported; the fact was, a trade on money borrowed at Indian interest had ruined the Company; the Company, as he had repeatedly asserted, never had an active capital applicable to the purpose of commerce. He would state their capital: the united Company were incorporated in the year 1702, by an indenture between her majesty queen Anne and the two East India Companies, which had previously existed on separate establishments. In 1693 the the of king William, there had been raised for this purpose by subscription, in

1217
virtue of his letter patent, on a capital of

3,200,000l. at 87½ per cent.

£ 2,800,000

Of which there had been lent to government at 8 per cent. interest

2,000,000

They had also paid for dead stock under lord Godolphin's award

400,000

which made from the first capital a deduction of

2,400,000

So that the active capital amounted only to

400,000

To which a fresh subscription was made in 170l upon 800,000l. at 155 per cent. of

1,240,000

So that the capital was then

1,640,000

But of this sum, there was lent to government the same year

1,200,000

So that the capital then remaining for trade was but

440,000

(At this time interest was reduced to 5 per cent.)

In 1729, a douceur was paid to government of

200,000

Unless therefore the trade had encreased their stock beyond their dividends, the capital was reduced to

240,000

In 1741, they lent however to government, at 3 per cent. without any call on the proprietors

1,000,000

which exceeded the funded subscription afloat

760,000

At this time their loan to government amounted to

4,200,000

In 1750, the interest on this loan was reduced to per cent.

In 1789, a new subscription of one million stock at 174 per cent. added to the Company's resources the sum of

1,740,000

In 1793, the capital becoming more inefficient, 1,000,000l. of stock was added, though not ail subscribed till the year after, and this produced

2,027,295

Upon this capital and the Surplus revenues, had the Company conducted dick complicated system of conquests and commerce, with what success, the committee were now the judges.—One source of loss, however, he ought to state, and that was the sale of three of the four millions which their necessities had compelled the Company to dispose of, at the market price, after the whole loan to government had been converted into Consols at 3 per cent. and the remainder, which was of no greater value than the Consols of the day, was still a resource, though at the decreased value he had before stated, in examining the stock by computation. Upon such slender means had the machine been conducted; how far they were adequate he would not
1218
detain the committee to enquire, but a reference to the annual balances of their stock account would, in a moment, shew the progress of their affairs.—The ex-chairman had broadly admitted the Company's present distress, and indeed to have denied the fact, would have been strangely inconsistent with his declarations in another place. The noble lord (Castlereagh) had also made a similar confession, but the prospect of a long peace in our provinces, afforded, in their opinion, ample confidence in the resources of the Company to surmount its present difficulties. The noble lord admitted that the India debt had afforded the capital for its commerce; he had also corroborated the elaborate statement of the hon. general (Wellesley) for a peace establishment, in which he was able only to exhibit the hope of a saving of 710,000l. per ann. and this without any allowance for the unliquidated arrears of the war, the encreasing interest on the bond debt, or the funds constantly required for investment on the present footing; both however had denied the insolvency of the Company, or that India was now more likely to become a burthen, than a relief to the mother country. The noble lord's illustration of the grounds of this confidence, was in unison with the declarations, so often officially made by him and his predecessors in the board of controul. It was only a stronger dose of that sweet nepenthe, annually distributed in their budget speeches. "Hope travels on, nor quits us till we die." The fate, however, of a certain other great monopoly, framed upon extravagant speculation, ought to be a warning to this country, as well as to the India Company. In a large building, between Leadenhall-street and the Royal Exchange, was there not at this day an evidence of the country's being compelled to pay a composition upon the capital, as well as the debts of a privileged corporation? The Mississipi bubble had ruined French credit, and so would the South Sea project have ruined that of England, had not government stepped forward with the public purse, to pay a part of the corporate deficiency. But, the Company, as was asserted by the noble lord and the ex-chairman, and after them by the Director, who had just sat down, possessed ample resources to prevent ultimate loss to the state. They had their claim of ten millions for buildings and fortifications; this, the alderman said, he had completely disposed of. The noble lord had indeed stated, that they were, it was true, 1,598,000l. deficient

1219
of their capital, assuming all the items it the stock by computation to be valid; admitting this fallacious statement, Were they not still without the capital for trade or the means of raising one? If, however the committee adopted his (the alderman's) deductions, this deficit would be found nearer 14,600,000l. But the relief which the noble lord himself had suggested, sufficiently proved what his own real opinion was of the Company's situation—"We are in no danger of becoming burthensome to the state, or of calling for any fresh trading capital;" only, says the noble lord, "allow us to raise four or five millions by the sale of fresh created stock, and lend us seventeen millions more, to be raised on parliamentary security, for our corporate use and benefit!" Sweet, indeed, and large must be the dose of nepenthe; copious the opiate draught that would any longer lull the house and the country into such dangerous security. Better far would it be, the alderman observed, to go first into the committee, which the noble lord now recommended; for himself, he was persuaded, that the extent of the disease was not yet discovered, and therefore no adequate remedy could be applied till a fresh report was made to the house, upon a full investigation of all the branches of the India system—a firm conviction in his mind of the magnitude of those embarrassments, and of the extreme difficulty of finding a remedy; and not any of the personal or party motives, which had been again ascribed to himself; not any resentment for disappointed ambition, nor envy at the Company's power and influence, but a just sense of his duty, as a representative of the commons of England, and as one of the magistrates of the first commercial city in the universe, the greatest that modern or ancient times beheld; these were the stimuli which had urged him to enter thus largely into the wide detail of the Company's affairs, and which would continue to support him, in the further prosecution of the subject, next session, of which he had given notice in the house.
Mr. Hudlestonein explanation said, it was impossible for him to imagine where the worthy alderman had gotten the statement which he had made to the committee of the amount or value of the Company's exports to India, or who had furnished it, but that fortunately he (Mr. Hudlestone), happened to have brought with him to the house a document on that head, for the ac-
1220
curacy of which he would pledge himself to the committee. Mr. Hudlestone accordingly read from that document, that the Company's exports to India from the season of 1797, to that of 1804, amounted to 12,368,402l. giving an average of 1,546,050l. in each year.

Lord Castlereagh said, that the share he had borne, and the interest he must always continue to feel in the administration of India, made him desirous of troubling the committee with such observations as the course of the present debate, and the general state of the Company's affairs at this period, suggested.—It was not necessary that he should detain them upon the detail of the accounts, which were the immediate subject of the committee's consideration. The different results had been very fairly and clearly opened by the noble lord, and so far as the statement related to the actual accounts for the year 1803–4 abroad, and those in estimate for 1804–5, he had the satisfaction of entirely concurring in the view his lordship had given of those accounts.—Owing certainly to no omission for which the noble lord could be responsible, but from the documents not having been received in due course from India, the committee had only now before them what ought more properly to have constituted the Budget of the preceding year, and had to regret that the information was still so much in arrear, as to deprive them of the means of forming ally very precise judgment of the present state of the Company's finances.—Notwithstanding the defective nature of the materials, he was glad that the present discussion had taken place. It was not likely that gentlemen reasoning upon results that can only now be given on estimate, and drawing their inferences from combinations of accounts intricate in themselves, and such as cannot be easily reconciled in a single discussion of this nature, should frequently find it impossible to agree in any very precise conclusion. At the same time, the debate served to bring into view,and into discussion many leading points connected with the management of this important concern, with sufficient accuracy, to be productive of practical advantage to the administration of Indian affairs. He had always considered the publick service much indebted to those gentlemen who provoked enquiry and discussion upon Indian subjects, from an intimate persuasion that it was attended with beneficial consequences both abroad and at home. Under this impres- sion of duty, he should state to the committee his sentiments upon the leading points which had been adverted to in the course of the present debate, and more particularly on the probable state of the Company's affairs at the winding up of the Indian war, and the measures which he deemed it requisite should be taken thereupon, with a view of enabling the Company effectually to avail themselves of their general resources, in meeting the pressure of the heavy debt which had grown up abroad.—He could not but regret that in discussing the situation of the Company's affairs, gentlemen so frequently neglected to take the obvious distinction (which they never failed to do as a matter of course, when speaking of our affairs at home) between a period of war and peace. When they ventured to speak of the insolvency of the Company, and attempted to prove it by a comparison of their annual means, independent of loans, with their late expenditure, it would be well they would consider, whether the insolvency of the government at home, or of any government in the world might not, in time of war, be established by the same mode of reasoning. It would be as untrue with respect to an individual to bring forward a year of extraordinary outgoings as the measure of his expenditure, and to conclude him ruined, because he could not meet such an extent of charge, without having recourse to loans.—Another mode in which it is attempted to establish this theory of insolvency, is, to suppose the Company dissolved, and called upon like any common banker, at a moment's warning, to pay, not only all just demands upon them, but also to repay themselves, their capital stock subscribed. It is then said, where are your means? can you turn your wealth into money? must not the Company acknowlege itself bankrupt?—It is hardly necessary to observe on the absurdity of resembling a great body of this description, created for the double purpose of trade and government (in which capacity it was to be hoped, for the sake of the constitutional liberties of the country, they would in all times, under proper regulations, continue to endure) with an ordinary trader; but if this very inappropriate comparison is to be made, would not a manufacturer, who had sunk much of his capital in machinery, not in itself of a description to be easily turned into money, though productive to him of considerable annual profit, be as open to a sentence of bankruptcy, upon these principles, as the Company? It is hardly fair of gentlemen who wish to throw open the Company's trade, or to carry forward any other speculative project with respect to India, to endeavour thus indirectly to attain their ends, by holding out to the publick exaggerated and gloomy representations of the affairs of a commercial body, whose credit, and consequently whose interests must, if these statements are believed, be thereby materially injured.—But, even upon the grounds Of their own reasoning, their conclusion may be disproved. They set out by very unfairly considering they entire Indian debt as a sole and absolute charge upon the Company's funds, distinct from the territories. Now, assuming the day arrived when parliament should think fit to vest the government of India in other hands, can it be supposed that, upon an equitable settlement between the Public and the Company, the latter upon the expiration of their charter, which may be considered in the nature of a lease for 21 years under the state, would be ultimately saddled with these loans, so far as they have been contracted, not for any temporary or commercial interest of the Company, but for the permanent defence and security of those valuable possessions? It is obvious that an adjustment must he made on this head, the extent and nature of which must depend on a variety of considerations.—It is enough at present to point out the fallacy, in any general balance of the Company's affairs, of considering the Indian Debt as wholly chargeable upon them, as a trading company.—But, even on this supposition, the result is not so discouraging, when the Assets, Dead Stock, and absolute rights of the Company, are set oft against the Gross debts.

India Debt, April 1804 22,586,207

Debt in Europe, March 1805 6,012,196

Total £.28,548,403

Capital Stock 7,780,000

Total Debts £.36,328,403

Assets in India, April 1804 14,452,343

Assets at Home, March 1305. 20,442,659

£.34,895,002

Debts, including Capital 36,328,403

Assets 34,895,002

Balance against £ 1,433,401

This balance will certainly stand less favourably, when the accounts are received, bringing down the expences abroad to April 1806, before which time the peace reductions could not begin materially to operate, and a considerable reduction must be made, though by no means to the extent gentlemen are disposed to push it, from the Assets for bad Debts and Demands on government not allowed; but, on the other hand, the Company have a considerable claim on any final settlement for their Dead stock amounting to 9,994,208l. They would also still stand possessed, if the charter Was terminated, a considerable revenues, arising from territories to which they long since became entitled, by grants and not by conquest. Of this description are Bombay, Fort St. George, Fort William, with their dependant territories, St. Helena, the northern Circars, subject to a question, and other possessions, the annual revenues of which in 1793 were estimated at 520,000l. —Upon a mere balance then of their capital wealth, compared with the claims upon them, after making all due deductions from the Assets for such claims as may be insolvent, and striking off the proportion of debt that must in equity follow the territories, and remain secured upon them till finally liquidated, the balance of such an account would, he had no doubt, leave the company in possession of ample means to discharge all demands upon them, including, their Capital Stock.—But the productive wealth of the Company ought to be measured, not merely by their capital, but by the ordinary produce of the concern in years of peace. In 1802, their net proceeds arising from Surplus Revenue and Profits of Trade were estimated at 1,500,000l. after defraying all charges, an estimate which, from subsequent experience, it appears would have been fully realized, had we remained at peace.—If we were, then, to look at this question as a mere matter of account, without reference to the more enlarged functions the Company were intended to perform, it would be impossible to contend, upon any fair view of their wealth point of capital, or upon their presumeable clear income in time of peace, even after their own immediate profits have been secured in the Shape of dividends, that the Company can be considered in a state any thing approaching to insolvency, however their affairs may at the present moment severely experience the Pressure of war, and the extent and nature of their debt require, in sound policy, the most vigorous measures for its reduction.—There were a few other points that had been touched upon in the course of the debate, which he should wish to notice, before he proceeded to state what, in his conception, would be the state of the finances abroad at the winding up of the war, and the course which ought to be pursued for the effectual relief of the Company's affairs. They might be classed under the following heads: 1st. The extent and nature of the Company's trade, whether profitable or not? 2ndly. Whether the commercial capital of the Company had become insufficient for carrying on their trade, and if so, from what sources the extra funds had been supplied? 3dly. Whether in the general management of the Company's affairs for a period of years, India stood indebted to Europe, or Europe to India? and 4thly, as connected with, and arising out of the preceding points, to what purposes, whether of commerce or government, the produce of the various loans made abroad since the renewal of the charter, had been applied?—And first, as to their Commerce, he conceived an hon. alderman (Prinsep) in endeavouring to lead the attention of the committee to a collateral question: viz. that of the Private Trade, one certainly of great moment in itself, but much too extensive in its bearings to be mixed with propriety or advantage in the present debate, had given not a very true or candid picture of the Company's commerce, either as it related to their own immediate profits, or to its effects upon the manufacturing prosperity of the empire at home. Their trade, but more particularly that with the continent of India, he had described as a losing commerce, in order to found upon this assumption the inference, that their monopoly ought to be put an end to, and their trade, at least with the continent of India, thrown open. That the trade either with India or China was carried on to a loss, lie must he permitted to doubt. He held in his hand an Account, prepared at the India house, of the clear profit on the prime cost of both the Indian and China investments for 15 years from 1787 to 1801, both Nears inclusive. By this it appeared, that the average of profit on the Indian Investments for the period in question, was 22l. 8s. 6d. per cent. for the whole period, and proportionably much higher in the later years since the shipping system of the Company was opened to a free and unrestrained competition. —The average Profit on the China Investment calculated upon the same principles and for the like period, is stated to be 37l. 14s. 4d. per cent. The committee would observe that this was the profit upon the entire commercial transaction, from the dispatch of the goods or fundes from hence till the return and sale of the investment, and that in order to determine how far the operation is commercially profitable, the above percentage must be compared with the amount of capital employed and the extent of time which is required in the ordinary course of business to complete this revolution, which may be taken at about two years and a half upon an average, the return from India being somewhat quicker than from China.—Another mode of looking at this question might be had recourse to, by reference to an account then on the table, which he had himself moved for in 1803, viz. of the actual annual Proceeds at home of the 4 years ending in March 1802, which were on an average 366,000l. per annum, after paying all charges, in this account, previous to the balance being struck, the dividends were included, which must be considered as in the nature of commercial profit, being in truth the return to the proprietors upon their capital stock employed in trade. This account, subject however to sonic adjustments would go to prove the Company's commerce eminently productive; but before we can consider this large annual surplus a clear commercial gain, in addition to the ten and a half per cent. the proprietors receive in dividends, we must first be satisfied, (and he would subsequently state his reasons for holding a different opinion), that no more capital was really employed in carrying on this trade, than that which was visibly assigned to this purpose; namely, the Capital Stock, the company's Bonds, and the other floating Securities for which an interest was paid. Whatever additional funds had actually found their way into the commercial concern, must be considered as part of the capital employed, and the return must provide for the interest of such funds, before the clear profit can be precisely ascertained.—It seemed, however, unjust to describe the Company's commerce as carried on at a loss. To what precise extent it might be profitable, after providing a liberal dividend to the proprietors, might be a matter of more difficult calculation, and must, like all commercial results, be in its nature fluctuating; but, in reasoning upon this branch of the Company's affairs, the worthy alderman must establish several preliminary facts, before he can expect to persuade parliament that the commercial existence of the Company is to be considered merely on grounds of mercantile profit. He must be prepared to shew that individuals would be as likely to carry on steadily the commerce of India, under all the fluctuations to which such a trade is liable, where the outgoings are great, and the returns distant, as a great trading corporation. He must he prepared to dispel the apprehensions which must be entertained with respect to the injurious influence on the prosperity of India, which may be the consequence of an unsteady and unequal demand for their produce, before he can expect to satisfy parliament that an intercourse, perfectly unrestrained, is preferable to that qualified intercourse, partly free and partly restricted, which now prevails. If he assumes, that individuals by using an inferior description of tonnage, could carry on the trade at less expence, and consequently at greater profit, he must be prepared to shew, that this is not merely by throwing the difference of the expence on the publick, by rendering numerous and expensive convoys requisite to protect their feeble vessels in time of war, whilst the Company's ships, with a comparatively slight aid from our navy, are competent to protect each other, and to set the enemy's ships of war, even when in considerable force, at defiance. He must be prepared to shew, that such an establishment as that of the Company, could he kept up without the protection of a qualified monopoly; or that such a system is in itself unnecessary to the political existence of the Company, and the management of large territorial revenues, when both in peace and in war Funds must be transferred through the medium of commerce from India to Europe and from Europe to India. He must also shew, before he can establish that the interest of the manufacturer at home is interested in such a change, that individual speculators would be disposed to send out British manufactures, even at some loss, as the Company have frequently done, or that there is any other limit to the amount of this description of Export, on the part of the Company, than the utmost quantity the Indian market can take off, which they have not hitherto been able, with their most strenuous efforts and some sacrifices, to carry beyond 2,000,000 a year. These, and many other important doubts must be solved, before any satisfactory or sound conclusion can be come to, on the great practical question, to which the worthy alderman, somewhat out of time, had been solicitous to point the attention of the committee. With respect to his position, that the commercial capital of the Company, properly so called, has in progress of time become inadequate to its purpose, that an accession of funds has been found necessary, and that the requisite encrease has been supplied by loans raised abroad, he had the satisfaction to agree with the worthy alderman, though by no means to the extent of his statement. Where the worth alderman found his principle, that it required four capitals, or 24,000,000l. to carry on the Company's trade, he knew not; certainly not from any thing he had ever said. He never had himself heard it before stated higher than two capitals and a half, or at the utmost three capitals; but without being able to trace the precise extent of the actual increase, he was persuaded that some considerable increase had taken place, partly from tracing the funds borrowed abroad to their probable destination, partly from a general but intimate persuasion that the Capital itself, even with the increased amount of the Company's floating securities, has gradually become unequal to the extent of their commerce; under the progressive increase of charge at which from the effects of war and other causes it has latterly been in common with all other operations necessarily conducted; but still more from a detailed examination of the extent and situation of the funds themselves, as distributed throughout the various branches of their trade. If he was right in his general position, it could not well be disputed, indeed it would be rendered less doubtful from some statements which he should subsequently refer to, that the funds requisite for this purpose had been raised abroad, and so far disadvantageously from the high rate of interest at which they were obtained, a practice which certainly nothing but a case of extreme necessity could in a commercial point of view justify.—This naturally led to the 3rd point of enquiry, which had been gone into at some length by his honourable friend the late chairman (Mr. Grant) and also by another hon. friend of his (sir A. Wellesley) viz. Whether upon the Balance of Funds passing between India and Europe for a series of years back, India stood indebted to Europe, or Europe to India? The former had stated the account between Europe on one side, and India and China on the other, and upon three several periods of years; viz. of 15 years, of 10 years, and of 7 years. From these statements the result was, that in the 15 years the accounts nearly balanced; on the 10 years the balance was about 2,400,000l. in favour of India, and upon the last 7 years, there was a balance the other way of about 536,000l.— The hon. general had taken somewhat a different view of the question. He had stated the same sort of balanced account between India on one side and Europe and China on the other, from the commencement of lord Wellesley's government in 1798; in order to shew, that India had supplied considerably more than she had received, and that down to April 1804 the increase of Assets, and the excess of her Supplies to Europe and China beyond the value received, nearly balanced the extraordinary funds raised. These two statements seem to lead to opposite conclusions. The first to establish an inference that the commercial treasury at home derived no aid of any consequence from abroad during the period in question, and the latter to establish a different inference. The two lead at once to the main practical question; namely, for what purposes were the loans raised abroad, and to what have they in point of fact been applied? It could not be expected that in a discussion of this sort, any very precise analysis could be given of so intricate an enquiry. He should, however, state generally his impression to the committee on that important point.—The first obvious fact that attracted attention upon an inspection of the Company's affairs, was the great increase of the Debts since the renewal of the charter:

Indian Debt, April 1804 22,536,207

1793 8,074,63

Actual Increase 14,461,342

Estimated Increase to April 1806, about 6,000,000

Total Increase £.20,461,342

Debt in Europe, March 1794 7,006,500

1805 6,012,196

Total Decrease £.994,304

Increase in India 20,461,342

Decrease in Europe 994,504

Net Increase £.19,467;038

In considering to what purposes these Funds have been applied, it has already been stated that during the 4 years ending. in 1802, no loss, but on the contrary a profit took place on the Company's trade. The same fact is corroborated on a more extended period of years; viz. from 1795 to 1804 by an account now before parliament presented in 1804,*by which the Surplus Proceeds at home in the 10 years, amount 981,781l. From these documents it would appear, that no part of the produce of these Loans has been dissipated in the commercial transactions of the Company. Whether the may not have been employed in certain branches of them, and been invested goods or other articles for which a value remains, is a separate consideration, and will be examined hereafter. Neither is there any reason to suppose that any considerable proportion of the produce of these Loans have been sunk and expended on the defence and management of the territories. By the accounts above alluded to, it appeared that the Revenues realized in 10 years to April 1863,

Amounted to £. 94,756,281

Actual 1803–4 13,273,044

Estimate 1804–5 13,558,509

Estimate 1805–6 14,279,533

Revenue, 10 years £.135,867,367

The Charges abroad for the same period, including Interest of Debt, and deducting Expence of Bencoolen, St. Helena, and the other settlements extra the continent of India as being rather connected with the commercial than the territorial charges, were as follows:

Ten Years to 1803 £.91,416,635

Actual, 1803–4 14,748,872

Estimate, 1804–5 15,005,013

Estimate, 1805–6 16,664,672

£.137,835,192

Interest paid to Commissioners of Sinking Fund 730,000

Net Expenditure abroad 137,103,192

Revenues, 13 years 135,867,367

Charges, 13 years 137,105,192

Deficiency £.1,237,825

During the above period certain expences immediately appertaining to the territories were paid in Europe, which ought to be added to the charges. They amounted, on an average of years, to about 300,000l. per annum, or for the entire period 3,900,000l. On the other hand, the Revenues are entitled to have credit for whatever *See Vol.II. p. 1167. sums included in the Charges abroad were disbursed on account of government, and for which the Company either have or receive payment with Indian interest thereupon, perhaps to the amount of 3,500,000l. —Upon the whole, it appeared, that during the period in question, which was one of nearly uninterrupted war, the territories had nearly maintained themselves, and consequently but a very small proportion of the sums raised by loans had been sunk in their defence.—Where, then, did the great mass of the 19,467,038l. Extraordinary Funds raised by loans since 1793, go? By referring to the Account of Assets abroad to April 1804, and March 1805 at home, it would appear that a very large increase had taken place in both since 1793.

Assets in India, April 1804 14,452,343

Assets in Europe,March 1805 20,442,659

£. 34,895,002

Assets in India, April 1793 8,339,362

Assets in Europe, March 1794 9,888,836

£.18,228,198

Assets 1801–5 34,895,002

Assets, 1793–4 18,228,198

Total Increase 16,666,804

This sum was liable to be increased by whatever proportion of the funds expended in the two subsequent years, viz. precious to April 1806, to which the debts have been stated On estimate, had been realized in the Assets. The amount would probably be considerable, though inferior to the Increase of Debt within the period.—It then appeared, that an increase had taken place in the Assets since 1793, to an amount nearly corresponding to that which had been made to the debt. It was plain such an immense increase could not have grown up from the commercial Profits. It was as clear, that during the period in question it could not have arisen from the Surplus Produce of the Revenues, absorbed as they had been by war: The only other possible source from which it could have arisen, was from the loans contracted within the period; with which in amount (without then inquiring how far it bad been invested in a description of value which could be realized or not) it in some degree corresponded.—If, then, the greater proportion of the 19,467,038l. added to the debt since 1793, was to be looked for in the Assets of the Company, it remained generally to be ascertained how far those funds had been appropriated to purposes connected with the commercial or territorial interests of the Company. That could only be done in a very general way, but he conceived with sufficient precision for any practical purpose. He apprehended, that to neither of these sources could its application he exclusively traced, but to both in their respective proportions. The Increase on the Home Assets was greatest. It amounted to 10,553,823l., that on the Assets abroad to 6,112,98l.—If the committee would inspect the items of which the Account of Assets consisted, they would perceive that of 20,442,659l. at home, with the exception of what was stated to be due from government to the Company, the whole was strictly of a commercial description. The Charge against government within this period was stated at 4,460,192l. which deducted from the increase of 10,553,823l. seemed to leave the increase strictly commercial to be 6,093,63l.—If the Assets abroad, amounting to 14,452 343l. after deducting the securities in the hands of the commissioners were similarly analized, the greater proportion would certainly be found to be connected with the management of the territories ; but still a considerable share must be referred to the commerce, viz.

Export Goods £.1,022,007

Import Goods 1,156,228

Commercial Advances 2,131,172

Stores, in part 2,061,593

To which might be added some allowance for the share the trade might have in rendering large Balances of Cash necessary, in the various principal and subordinate treasuries abroad for the convenient conduct thereof. Supposing the same proportion to prevail between the commercial and political branches with respect to the 6,112,981l increase in the foreign Assets since 1793, which is observable in the general account; there would then be assignable within the period of increase,

To Territories, about 4,112,981

To Commerce, about 2,000,000

£.6,112,981

If, then, to the increased Commercial Assets at home, viz. 6,093,631l. were added the proportion of the increased assets abroad, which might be deemed commercial, viz. 2,000,000l. the whole commercial increase would be 8,093,631l. since 1793, which might be taken to be about the proportion of the Debt which had been contracted for purposes directly or indirectly connected with the commerce, and to have been gradually invested in a larger and more valuable stock of goods and stores on hand both abroad and at home; in a commerce more enlarged, as well as necessarily conducted at a considerably increased advance of capital; and also in an extension of the buildings and other establishments connected with this branch of the Company's service. —Deducting the amount which appeared to have been thus realized in the Commercial Assets from the gross Increase of Debt, there was some reason to presume that the residue had been raised and applied to services either connected with the territorial government or the service of the state at home,

Gross Increase of Debt since 1793 £.19,467,038

Assignable to Trade 8,093,631

Remains 11,373,407

Deduct Claims on Government 4,460,192

Remains £.6,913,215

The latter sum, liable to be increased by whatever proportion of the Claim on government is disallowed, may be deemed, upon grounds of general reasoning, the proportion of the Debt incurred since 1793 assignable to the territories, about 4,000,000l. of which may be found in the territorial assets abroad, having been invested partly in increased Cash Balances, partly in larger sums floating between the presidencies, as well as between the sub-treasuries within each presidency, partly to advances to native powers, or their creditors, as for instance, the advance on account of the Carrnatic Debt, the Loan to the Guicowar, &c. The advances on account of the public, he did not consider as a debt belonging to the territories, as the sum, when repaid, whatever it was, ought to discharge an equal amount of debt.—If this statement were sufficient correct for the purposes of reasoning upon, of which he thought no doubt could well be entertained, however the detail might, on a closer inspection, be varied, two observations naturally suggested themselves which it was important to remark, not only with regard to the past but the future management of the Company's affairs: First, the extent of Debt which had been contracted, and Secondly, that the entire increase had taken Place abroad, The obvious disadvantage of providing those extraordinary funds abroad, winch either the political or commercial service of the Company might require, at an interest nearly double that paid for money in Europe, at first sight might seem to call in question the prudence with which the Company's affairs during that period had been conducted; but, it was due to the Court of Directors, and to those who then presided over the Indian administration, to state, that the most serious obstacles stood in the way of their raising any considerable sum in the market at home, nearly throughout the entire of that period. He dwelt the rather on this point, as it, in principle, Connected itself immediately with the remedial measures hereafter to be recommended. with respect to the past, there was every reason to presume (to such a degree was the market at home preoccupied by the publick loans,) that the Company had then no other option but to borrow abroad. The serious evil however of raising money at 10 and 12 per cent. exclusive of a bonus to the subscribers, ought to suggest, for future consideration, if the requisite loans cannot, either in the whole or in part, be raised in time of war in Europe, and remitted to India; whether the amount of the money borrowed abroad ought not to be kept down as much as possible, even at the inconvenience of some reduction of the usual extent of the investment. He was fully aware of the importance of giving at all times the utmost support to the industry and prosperity of India, by the purchase of its manufactured produce; and of the objections to any check being given to the fall employment of the company's Shipping; but, if the funds for both the commercial and political services cannot be found at such a period, on terms less ruinous, it was of the last importance that the amount raised by loans abroad, should be kept within the narrowest limits possible.—He was aware that the extent of Extra Funds which he was led to suppose bad found their way into the commerce, more particularly in Europe since 1793, did not quite accord with the account of value transmitted to, and received from India during that period from which his hon. friend (Mr. Grant) had made his statement. He was not able to follow the items of the account so far as to judge whether it gave India credit not only for its ordinary advances on account of Europe, viz. to Ceylon, to the navy, to the Company's ships, &c. but also for the very large advances advances on account of government, with interest due thereon, which had been a subject of enquiry and settlement in the course of last session, or whether it gave credit for the commercial charges abroad not added to the invoices, and also for the funds remitted to Bencoolen, St. Helena, &c. which must be considered chiefly as commercial advances. It would require much pains and attention to reconcile these several accounts, and from the whole to deduce a consistent and satisfactory result. With this view, he was of opinion, that it would be desireable to charge a special committee sitting above stairs, with the task of investigating and reporting upon the present state of the Company's finances in all its details. If such an enquiry was instituted, not with any hostile or indirect view of shaking the Company's rights, or of innovating on their existing constitution, but with a sincere and candid desire to remove doubt, and to throw light on such points as were disputable in their financial system, he was persuaded the result would be highly advantageous to their general credit, and that a report coming from such authority would go far to prevent the publick mind from being hereafter misled with respect to the true state of the Company's affairs.—He was the more desirous that such an enquiry should be instituted, as he did not conceive, upon any grounds less grave and satisfactory than an investigation before a committee of their own members, that parliament would feel itself authorized to lend its aid to the Company in carrying into effect those vigorous measures winch could alone, in his judgment, afford an early, adequate, and effectual relief to their finances, the nature of which relief he should now lay before the committee; first, however, shortly explaining the actual state of their affairs, as calling for and recommending such a measure.—The Company's Debt in April 1802, to which debt the plan of liquidation which he had the honour of opening to parliament in March 1803 was applied, amounted to 18,654,381l. of which about 16,000,000l. bore interest. The Debt up to April 1806 was estimated at 28,500,000l. of which about 25,000,000l. might he considered as bearing interest. The annual Interest in the former period was 1,394,170l. In the latter, it would somewhat exceed 2,000,000l, The Surplus Revenue was estimated in March 1803 at 1,053,000, exclusive of 80,000l. interest payable on debt redeemed. By the actual accounts of 1802–3 the surplus, notwithstanding 500,000l. additional charge occasioned by assembling towards the close of the year the armies on the Mahratta frontier, amounted to 7,97,000l. which would have given a surplus of 1,297,000l. in that year, had this armament not taken place.—Calculating upon some further military reductions then in contemplation, and about 120,000l. a year which had since accrued to the revenue of Fort George from the fund antecedently appropriated to the Carnatic Creditors, had we remained on a peace establishment, they Surplus at this day, independent of savings from reduction of interest, would probably not have fallen short of 1,500,000l. Out of this Surplus, the Charge of Interest on Debt since incurred, must be defrayed. Taking this at 700,000l. the surplus likely to be forth-coming upon our return to a peace establishment, might then be estimated at about 800,000l.— This corresponded pretty nearly with the view which his hon. friend (sir A. Wellesley) had taken of this part of the subject; in which, after estimating the revenues from the late conquests and cessions at 1,200,000l. and the additional Charges of the same at nearly a like sum, he reckoned upon an annual surplus of 700,000l. when all the reductions were completed, exclusive of the interest payable on debt redeemed amounting to about 250,000l.—It would certainly be too sanguine to estimate the Surplus, upon the most favourable hypothesis, at more than 1,000,000l. It would not be necessary to waste many arguments in order to satisfy the committee, that to contend successfully against a debt of 28,000,000l. a more effective surplus is indispensable, and they must at once perceive that the Plan of Reduction which was framed in 1803 to meet a debt of 18,000,000l. must be comparatively feeble and inadequate as applied to the debt augmented us it now is by ten millions additional.—It was obvious, that the system of liquidation now to be pursued should be of a description to be rapidly operative in peace, else the Company, in case of an early recurrence of war, might be exposed to have its Surplus Revenue absorbed in defraying the charge of new loans, and thus find itself deprived upon a peace even of the existing means of liquidation.—The past intervals of peace since our connection with India, have not been found such as to justify us in being satisfied with paying off debt only at the rate intended in 1803, when the gross amount of debt did not exceed 18,000,000l. Under these circumstances, the natural remedy and resource for the Company to look to, was, on the return of peace, to repair, with the least possible delay, the misfortune of having been obliged to raise since 1793 all their loans abroad. For this purpose, he would recommend that not less than 20,000,000l. of the debt owing in India should be transferred to Europe, with as much rapidity as its transfer could be arranged, or funds remitted from hence for its liquidation. The immediate saving of interest on this transaction alone, would be nearly 4 per cent. at once adding about 800,000l. a year to the Company's. surplus. —Some gentlemen had spoken with alarm of the proportion of the Indian debt, of which payment was demandable in Europe: the amount was stated to be 17,000,00l, He believed the securities which gave an option to the holders to transfer their debts to Europe, might not fall short in the aggregate of this sum, but from the terms of remittance to which they were entitled, the amount which would really come home, he believed, was not likely to exceed 7,000,000l. He was not, however, disposed to draw any consolation from this circumstance. He should deem it rather desirable that the whole 17,000,000l. should come home, as it would additionally impel the Company to make arrangements for converting so much of the Indian into a European debt. He was satisfied that they had the means of doing so with great advantage to their affairs; and if he was desirous of seeing this measure thus in some degree forced upon them, it was from an apprehension that, where the inconvenience was operating at a distance, men were always less disposed to make an effort out of the ordinary course of management, than when it was directly pressed upon their attention.—The means of giving complete effect to this plan, he admitted to depend in a great measure on the return of peace. During war, the Company could not, with the same advantage, add to their capital, nor could they, without some inconvenience to the state, add materially to the amount of the loan, which time market was called on to supply for the public service. To a certain extent he was however of opinion, even in war it should be attempted; reserving till the peace the execution of the measure in its full extent. —The amount of funds required for this conversion of debt was much beyond what the Company, without great inconvenience, could obtain merely by an extension of their capital stock, as money thus raised was procured by creating a debt in its nature not redeemable. He was of opinion that the sum to be raised in this manner, ought not very materially to exceed what the Company were at present entitled by law to borrow, namely, 2,000,000l. which being subscribed for at 200l. per cent. and upwards, that not being too high an estimate of its peace value, would produce above 4,000,000l. sterling.—The remaining 16,000,000l. he should propose to borrow upon the security of the territorial revenues guaranteed by parliament, in such proportion as it might be required for remittance to India. The money to be raised in the first instance like any other public loan, and paid over to parliamentary commissioners, charged with its application to the reduction of the Indian debt, who should be authorized to receive the annual interest, together with the one per cent. sinking fund payable on account of the same, out of the Indian revenues, to be strictly set apart and paid over to them, or their order, in the precise order of payment, (that is, immediately after the Military Charges are provided for, and in preference to all other civil or commercial demands whatever) which is now by law provided in favour of the creditors of the Company.— This proposition might at first sight appear open to many objections, and seem to realize at once the prophecies of some gentlemen, that the distresses of the Company were become such as had at length compelled them to come to parliament for relief; but he denied that it was at all open to such a comment any more than the system which had been acted upon uninterruptedly for the last ten years with respect to the loans raised for the service of Ireland, even before the union. The amount annually required being invariably comprehended in the British loan for the year, was in the first instance Secured upon the British consolidated fund. It was then paid over by the British to the Irish treasury; the Irish treasury being bound to remit to the British treasury in each year, the Interest and Sinking Fund, till the whole capital thus created on account of Ireland was paid off.—In proposing a similar arrangement with respect to the Company, the committee would hold in mind, that the proposition in no degree originated with the Company, that it was merely the suggestion of an individual, not founded upon any existing failure of means in that body to meet, without the aid of parliament, every claim upon them, but offered for consideration as a measure calculated without loss to the public to add 800,000l. a year to the Company's income, and thereby obtain with more certainty for the public their annual participation of 500,000l. to which in the event of an adequate surplus existing abroad, they are entitled.—It really appeared to him that the public were even more interested than the Company in this measure, as their prospect of participation would be thereby at once improved so much, as to be placed nearly beyond the reach of failure; whereas the dividends to the proprietors were already secured, but both the public and the Company would largely feel the benefit of it, in the effect it would have in ameliorating the finances of an Empire in which they have a common interest, which is the only British possession that has never yet in war been a charge out the mother country, except so far as its naval protection is concerned, and which has ample means of sustaining itself, in all future wars, from its own resources, if wisely administered, and upon principles not less enlarged and liberal than those which have been already acted upon with respect to other leading branches of the empire.—That the general inducements in the present case were not less strong, and the risks not greater than in the precedent of Ireland, he thought might be successfully contended. As to the extreme case of either Ireland or India being lost to the British crown, he thought it one not to be contemplated in regulating one's decision upon a financial question of this nature. Parliament had not formerly suffered such a consideration with respect to Ireland, nor would they now suffer it with respect to India, to divest them from an important and beneficial measure of general policy. Short of the case of our absolute expulsion from India, it was impossible to call in question the nature of the security which the publick would have for the regular discharge of these loans. They would have revenues in the first instance mortgaged to them, the produce of which was not less than 14,279,000l. a year, out of which this payment would be set apart, next in order after the military charges of the government, which in the most expensive year of war did not exceed 8,970,000l. The charge for Interest and Fund, suppose on a loan of 16,000,000l. amounting annually to less than, 1,000,000l. would be received out of a residue of above five millions sterling. They would have not only the same security as the creditors of tin Company have lent their money on, but the same security in fact much improved by there being 800,000l. less to be paid on
of the same means. They would also have if possible, better security than the publick had in the case of Ireland, as the large sums applicable in time of peace to the reduction of the Indian debt would in this case over and above the ordinary sinking fund of one per cent. be payable to the commissioners to be by them applied to the more rapid extinction of the capital created fob the service of the Company.—It might he said, if the security of the Company really as good as had been described, why was it necessary to come to parliament to negotiate a loan for them? why did not they at once raise it for themselves? The answer to this was, that the Company were not in the habit of borrowing in Europe to such an extent. Their security might be unexceptionable, yet individuals being unable, amidst so much controversy as to the nature of it, to form a decisive opinion of their own, might be disinclined to lend to them on the same advantageous terms as they would to the publick. In short, the same reasons for adopting the measure applied in this case, as did in the case of Ireland, and the publick had even a more direct interest than they had in that case to facilitate the execution of the measure.—But the obtaining the money on more advantageous terms in the first instance was not the only benefit that would accrue from its being raised as a publick loan. Being included in the general mass of the Funded Debt, the capital would be redeemable at the precise value of the funds at the time, whereas, were this sum funded in a three per cent. separate stock, although no corresponding advantage in the original terms would probably be allowed to the company by the subscribers, the magnitude of the sinking mg fund applicable to its reduction in peace, would force up the value of this particular stock to par much sooner than the other funds,and thus the Company would have to redeem it on much less favourable terms. —Whilst the advantages, then, were clearly in favour, not only of the transfer of a large proportion of the debt to Europe, but also of its transfer in this mode, he did not see any solid grounds of objection which
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could be urged on the part of the publick to the proposition. Ireland was not the only instance in which the credit of the publick had been interposed for the purpose of promoting and protecting the general prosperity. When the commercial credit of the country was embarrassed by temporary causes, parliament voted five millions of exchequer bills to be advanced by commissioners to individuals upon security to be approved by them. This measure relieved the prevailing distress, and cost the publick nothing. Loans of the same description had been extended to sufferers by the calamity of seasons in the West Indies. These seemed but two considerations in such a case to be weighed; first, whether the security was adequate, and secondly, whether the exigency, and the advantage likely to result, were such as justified an extraordinary interference? If the interest of the India Company was alone concerned, he thought parliament would have a very strong inducement to lend its aid to an arrangement by which the prosperity of so great a commercial body must be materially promoted, but in the present instance the publick were in truth themselves direct parties, not merely in the more limited pecuniary sense, as entitled to share in the surplus profits, but in the larger though more remote view of the Company being the instrument by which India was to be governed and preserved to the British crown, in failure of whose resources the charge of defending those possessions must in fact fall on the state.—The great object to look to in the management of the Company's finances, was, to have such a surplus in peace, as should make an effective progress in reducing the debt. If the suggestion which had been made added at once 800,000l. a year, to whatever the surplus might otherwise be, it was an augmentation of resource which, even in the more extended scale of the publick finances, could not but be attended with the most important and beneficial consequences. Those who had looked at the Company's finances with hope and confidence, as he had done, must feel disposed to promote a measure which was obviously calculated to accelerate and secure all the advantages which the public had been taught to expect from them, and in which expectation they would not have been disappointed under any other circumstances than those of a continued War Expenditure; but those who had been led to form mote gloomy conclusions, and to

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persuade themselves that India would yet prove a burthen, to the publick, ought to be the more eager, by these means, to postpone at least the evil day; the saving to be effected by this transfer of debt being in itself sufficient, without adding to the existing charges, to enable the Company to borrow not less than from eight to ten millions, if the exigency of their affairs should require it, and consequently operate proportionably to defer any possible demand for direct aid front the publick.—The noble lord concluded by saying, that he thought it natural and proper that his majesty's ministers should not be prepared till the actual accounts were received from India down to the close of the Mahratta war, to submit any conclusive plan to parliament upon this subject. He trusted however it would not be long delayed. It was to be presumed that the accounts which ought to have been before this time on the table, would arrive so as to admit of their being opened to parliament at the commencement of the next session. He should then hope that those immediately entrusted with the administration of India would be prepared to state the system upon which it was proposed to act. He trusted it would be one of energy proportioned to the necessity of rapidly reducing the debt abroad. He thought it ought to be preceded by a parliamentary enquiry. Whatever course his majesty's ministers might, upon full communication with the court of directors, think fit to pursue, provided it was founded upon enlarged and operative principles, it should have his cordial support. He only deprecated postponing the necessary effort too long: if made in due time, the debt might be kept within abounds; if not, it might hereafter, under the accumulating expenditure of war, prove fatal to the prosperity of the Company, and highly injurious to the general interests of the empire.
Dr. Laurencesaid, he should not attempt to follow the noble lord through the long statement which the house bad just heard, but there were some points on which he wished to make a few short observations. If the Company could pay the 500,000l. annually, they should come and state to the house that they were capable of so doing. The noble lord (Castlereagh) had annually told the house, that the Company were in an absolute state of prosperity, and now he Venture it to come forward with a proposition for this country to relieve them by guaranteeing their loans! Mr. Dundas too,
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said, that it was more likely that India would come in aid of this country, than that she would become a burthen to her. All these fine predictions were however reversed, and there was now as decided a change as ever was known in this world. This was the jet and issue of all the fallacies that had been stated to the house from year to year! Such, said the learned gent. were the statements made in this little snug party! [only 27 members were present]. The noble lord called upon ministers to institute an enquiry; but why did lie not make such an enquiry while he was in office? With respect to the question of exclusive trade; when that cams before the house, the learned gent. said, he should look at it as a whole, and not as the hon. alderman (Prinsep) had done. The house had lately been told, that the government of the country had been guilty of a breach of faith towards the army, but yet we were not permitted to say that the Company were in a state of insolvency. What was insolvency but an inability to pay debts? And that he insisted, was the present state of the India Company. The Dead Stock, every stick and stone had been put together, and set off against a debt that might come upon them at a day's notice. In the name of common sense, how could this be the case, unless there was a deficiency of the means of the Company? Something must be done, he ventured to say, and that speedily. Whether what the noble lord (Castlereagh) proposed, or whether what had been suggested by the hon. alderman, he did not say, but he could not put his trust in the noble lord, after the many years fine prospects that had been held out by him.
Mr. T. Jonessaid, that he concurred (notwithstanding his interrupting him as to putting questions) with the learned doctor in the opinion, that the Company ought to give some account of the payment of the six million charter-money due, which at best (as stated by hint and another member Mr. Martin) was a sum suspended, and as such could not be done away with, and it amounted to a sum, which, if paid, would relieve the public from that grievous and grinding tax, the Property Tax, which had been increased in bitterness and oppression by the ungracious mode, per saltum, of laying it on. He had often heard the late president of the board of controul (now lord Melville), state amidst his lavish praises of the Company's affairs, (while the figures told a different story) the immense sums

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which the mother country might soon expect from India. Has it ever come? Will it ever come? Must not (for that is the dread) the mother country bleed to support he offspring? The learned doctor observes this is a "snug party" to discuss topics in, a snug party of pleasure with all his heart said the hon. member, but this was a disgraceful party, twenty-seven members (alias creditors) met to adjust a debt of nearer 40 than 30 millions! and this he should prove on summing up. Where are his majesty's ministers, said the hon. member? Where are the directors [one only present, Mr Hudlestone]? Why do they not attend and assist the noble lord (Morpeth) in settling their own accounts? The Company is in a state of insolvency, and the noble ex president (lord Castlereagh) says, he consider them in the view of wanting "prompt and vigorous amelioration;" so that he, whatever he may think of his majesty's ministers, certainly does not imagine the director lay on a "bed of roses." The noble lord says, he compares them to manufacturers it embarrassment, who give in a list of then assets, So do I, said the hon. gent.; but honest manufacturers labouring under misfortunes call their creditors together: for instance, a coach-maker, who says "Here, I am in a bad way, take an inventory of all I have, barouches, landaus, gigs, tandems, telegraphs, &c. and come to some understanding." But have the directors of the East India Company done any such thing? The hon. member then proceeded to state, that lord Castlereagh had not succeeded, during his presidency, in getting a loan for some expedition (Egypt) and on that had recommended an enquiry into their affairs, —It was a matter of indifference, whether the debt was a commercial one or not. The noble lord had insisted much on that advantage; but the hon. gent. observed, that it was partly commercial and partly military, consisting of expensive staffs, and various expeditions as stated by him on the 25th of June 1801, and since considerably increased; and here he observed, that ever since the taking of Seringapatam, and the subsequent wars and acquirements, India had gained in aggrandisement of territory, but had improved only in poverty. Moreover, said the hon. member, to whom do these conquests belong? to the government or to the country? The hon. gent. then quoted, in proof of his assertions, Mr. Alderman Prinsep's speech, who had given an historical account of the Company, and in
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his asserting that they had always dealt in credit, Mr. Jones observed, that hitherto he had supposed them only as dealers in tea, nankeen, &c. He appealed strongly to the house on the comparison which had been made between the India and South, Sea House. He agreed with the hon. alderman, that the East India Company were in a state of insolvency, as they could not go on? They must borrow; they mast die—die all, die nobly," as in the Dramatist, die like demi Directors.—Then to the hon. gent.(Mr. Grant) who would not proceed until he had asked a question as to the amount of the debt, Mr. Jones made this statement, 31,000,000l.; the granted debt 6,000,000l. Sub-judice, at best, 2,672,440l. comprized in an account of above four millions with government, of which only part had been allowed to the Company, and consequently this sum might (as it was so in fact) be added, making the debt of the Company nearer forty millions than thirty. The hon. member then elmphatically said, "All that the grand defender of the Company (Mr. Grant) can say is, that he thinks theirs "an extricable case." These are two very remarkable words, and all I shall say further is, I think (and I believe the world thinks with me) theirs—an inextricable case.
Mr. W. Keenethought, that the excessive military charge of nearly 9 millions had caused the embarrassment of the Company's finances, and that prosperity might now fairly be anticipated.
Mr. Johnstonethought the prosperity of India was calculated on estimates never to be realized, and he thought it too much for human patience to hear the arguments urged in their support.
Mr. Grantin answer to Mr. alderman Prinsep said, that after having already engaged for some time the attention of the house, he would decline following the hon. gent. through all time details of his extraordinary speech, which contained the most extravagant and most unfounded views of the Company's affairs. It had little or no reference to the ultimate object of the discussion now carried on by the house, which was the improvement of the Company's state; its aim was evidently not the amendment but the abolition of the whole of the present system of the Company, and indeed the Company itself. For this he had pressed into his service facts altogether irrelevant, and had employed them in the most unfair and hostile manner. He was the professed

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advocate of another system, that of enlarging or rather entirely opening the Private Trade, a question not simply commercial, but involving one of greatest state concerns which could engage the attention of parliament, namely, on what principles India should continue to be held and governed by Great Britain. All that he had said respecting the loss with which he alleged the Company carried on their trade, amounted to mere assertion, and was disproved by the statements, he (Mr. Grant) had submitted to the house. The Company's Profits had, indeed, been diminished, but it was owing in part to the competition of the private traders, who had thereby injured both themselves and the Company. He had equally failed in his attempt to shew that the Company traded on it Revenue Capital. Nothing could be more loose and fallacious, than the data on which he endeavoured to support this idea. But the most surprizing of his assertions was, that the Company required 24 millions sterling to carry on their trade, that is to say, according to him, 21 millions for active capital, and 3 millions for dead capital. Whence did this enormous capital come? It was impossible for the hon. gent. himself to maintain that it was derived from the revenue; the hon. gent. affirmed that the Company possessed no property of their own—"that they had not a single shilling of their stock;"—it was evident that their debts in England never amounted to any thing like this sum; how, then, was the existence of such a capital to be accounted for? The fact was, such a capital did not exist. The investment of one year out and home, amounted on an average of 10 years ending with 1802–3, to little more than 5, millions, and the trade did not require an investment of four successive years before the returns of the first year were ready to he employed again. Nor would the allowance of 3 millions which the hon. gent. was pleased to make for Dead Stock or dead capital, added to all the circulating capital, bring the aggregate amount to nearly the sum of 24 millions. But, according to the hon. gent.'s mode of stating things, the Dead Stock, which he had been pleased to reduce in value from 9,900,000l. to 3,000,000l. must be taken at its full amount, because, whatever it may be worth, it actually cost the Company the sum at which it stands, and therefore he ought to compute the capital invested in their trade at 30,990,000l. instead of 24 millions. Mr. Grant supposed that the capital actually employed by the
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Company in their commerce, independent of their floating credits by India Bonds, Bills of Exchange, and goods bought on time, might, on an average of the 10 years before mentioned, be from 10 to 12 millions. Of capital to this extent, the hon. gent.'s own statement allowed the Company to be actually possessed, although he was pleased to affirm that they had no resource for investment; they likewise still enjoyed the credits just noticed, although he had further affirmed, that their faculty of borrowing seemed completely extinguished. It was the hon. gent.'s object to disparage the Company as an organ for carrying on the national commerce with India, and to extol the channel of the private trade in which he was personally interested; to supersede a tried and steady channel which had answered its purpose for two centuries, and had contributed to raise the prosperity of tie country, in order to favour another channel very uncertain in its extent or permanence. This was not the time to enter into a question which could not be justly treated without taking a comprehensive view of many topics connected with it, but such vague and unwarranted assertions as the hon. gent. dealt in, could have no weight in settling this question. He had boasted of the great Exports sent from this country to India when an experiment was allowed to be made by the private merchants. The fact was, the experiment did not increase the exports of the country, but only shifted them for that time from Company's to private ships, which by sailing sooner, anticipated the exports the Company's ships would otherwise have carried out.—The hon. gent. professed to give the history of the capital of the Company ab ovo, and begun with the year 1698, in which, according to him, the first capital was founded. But, unfortunately for him, he had begun a century too late, the Company, as every body knew, having been first incorporated in 1600. The Company formed in 1698, was a second Company, the first still continuing, and an instance very unhappily chosen by the hon. gent.; because that second Company was composed of merchants who envied the first, and the consequence was, that by the effect of rivalship and competition, raising the prices upon each other in their purchases, and lowering them upon each other in their sales, they were both brought to the brink of ruin, and at length, for self preservation obliged in the course of a few years to coalesce, which produced the United East In-

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dia Company, subsisting at this day. The hon. gent. affected to consider the active capital of the Company as at all times contemptible. The detached circumstances he mentioned to prove this strange assertion, did not at all establish it, and still less the annual amount of the Company's trade which was the true question; but without entering minutely into this point, was it not universally known that the Company had carried on their trade for a century and a half without any aid of capital from revenue or government; that they had become great by their trade, and had at length acquired territory and dominion, chiefly by their own commercial resources? What more could be necessary to show that their means had been equal to the production of great prosperity and power to themselves and the state? It was with great injustice therefore, that the hon. gent. attempted to degrade their means, their profits, their solvency, or their stability, by such rash and unwarranted assertion as he had ventured to utter. They could have no weight with those who knew or would examine the subject, but they were nevertheless highly reprehensible as used in that house, because it might be supposed no member would use them without some degree of authority, and they were most of all reprehensible from such persons as the hon. gent. who was fostered under the Company's wing, and now turns his influence against that body to whom he entirely owes the fortune which introduced him into notice in this country.
Mr. Alderman Prinsepconcluded the debate, by observing, that if the expressions he had used, of which such heavy complaints had just been made by the hon. ex-chairman (Mr. Grant), were felt to be either disrespectful to the great body whose affairs were now again under their annual investigation, or stronger than the occasion called for, (and even in this case they could riot justify the use of invective as a reply where confutation was felt to be impossible,) he trusted, that in the one case, allowance would be made for some degree of provocation he had met with at the beginning of the debate, in a fresh attempt to preclude him from expressing his sentiments at all in the committee, and in the other case, the the committee would think with him, that, feeling as he did, the importance of the facts, and of his deductions from them, it became both his right and his duty, to enforce conviction, by the strongest language that the subject suggested to his
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mind.—The Resolutions were then agreed to, and the house having resumed, the Report was ordered to be received on Monday.—Adjourned at one o'clock on Saturday morning.