CHAP. VII.

Proceedings in Parliament relative to the Renewal of the Company's Charter in 1793-Sir John Shore succeeds Lord Cornwallis as Governor-GeneralRelations of the English Government with the Nizam and the Mahrattas -Death of Mhadajee Scindia-War between the Nizam and MahrattasGuarantee of the Treaty of Alliance-Death of the Peshwa, and its Effects -Treaty fulfilled by Tippoo, and the Hostages restored-State of OudeDeath of the Nabob of Oude, and Succession of his Son-The young Nabob dethroned by the English on a Charge of Spuriousness, and Saadut Ali made Nabob-Affairs at Madras-Death of Mahomed Ali-Lord Hobart endeavours to obtain the Tranfer of Part of the Nabob's Country-Dispute between Lord Hobart and the Supreme Board-Capture of the Dutch Settlements.

ment.

IN 1793, the termination of the period assigned to the exclusive privileges of CHAP. VII. the Company so nearly approached, that the question, of renewing the charter, 1793. and of confirming or changing the present system of government, could no longer The renewal of be deferred. People had now so generally acquired the habit of lifting their the Company's eyes charter comes to the management of national affairs; and equal treatment to all so forcibly before parliarecommended itself as the best rule of government, that the commercial and manufacturing population were impelled to make an effort, more than usually strong, for the freedom of the Eastern trade. The principal places of manufacture and commerce, in the kingdom; Liverpool, Glasgow, Paisley, Manchester, Norwich, Exeter; exhibited combinations of the merchants and manufacturers, who passed the strongest resolutions; importuned the ministers; petitioned the legislature; and desired to have an opportunity of proving how much the real policy of commerce was violated, and the wealth of the country kept down, by the monopoly of so large a field of trade as that unhappily consigned to the East India Company.

The Indian government was so organized, as now very well to answer ministerial purposes; it was therefore the study of ministers to preserve things as they The Board of Control and the Court of Directors cast, with some skill, the parts which they had respectively to perform. A committee of Directors

were.

1793.

Book VI. was appointed, whose business it was to draw up reports upon the subject of the Eastern trade, and to answer the arguments of those by whom the freedom of that trade was advocated or claimed. Three such reports were exhibited. They were in the first instance referred to the Committee of the Privy Council relating to trade and plantations; and in the proper stage of the business were submitted to the House of Commons.

On the 25th of February, Mr. Dundas, in the House of Commons, made a display of the pecuniary state of the Company. Fortunately for the designs which were in agitation, the accounts of receipt and disbursement presented, just at that moment, a balance, of a large amount, on the favourable side. Of this circumstance the greatest possible advantage was taken. Every thing which could be effected by the confident assertions, so potent in persuasion, of men of influence and power, was done, to captivate the general mind with a prospect of Indian prosperity; to generate a belief that a great fountain, whence a perennial stream of wealth would flow upon the British nation, was, by the wisdom of its rulers, secured to that nation in India. Estimates were formed, with all the airs of accuracy, or rather of moderation, by which it was made to appear, that the surplus, exhibited by the accounts of the year immediately passed, would, in future years, rather increase than diminish. And with profound solemnity an appropriation, as if for perpetuity, was proposed, of a large superabounding sum, which would, it was said, be annually received from India. The eyes of men were successfully dazzled; and when Mr. Dundas called out to them, "Will you stop the tide of so much prosperity for untried theories," those who knew but little either about the theory or the practice of the case, that is, the greater number, were easily made to believe, that there was a great certainty of securing what they were told was the actual influx of wealth if they persevered in the present course; a great danger of losing it, if they allowed themselves to be drawn, by delusive prospects, into another.

The friend of Mr. Dundas, and, as well from intellect as from office, the advocate of his schemes, Mr. Bruce, the historiographer of the Company, says,

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Upon no occasion, perhaps, have men's minds been less prepared for a decision, on a subject of such magnitude and importance." It is, indeed, true, that the people were deplorably ignorant of the history and management of their East

* Report on the Negotiation between the Honourable East India Company and the Public, respecting the Renewal of the Company's exclusive Privilege of Trade, for Twenty Years from March 1794. By John Bruce, Esq. M. P., F.R. S. Historiographer to the Honourable East India Company, p. 13.

India affairs; and it was, on this account, the more easy to make them throw CHAP. VII. themselves, with blind confidence, upon the assertions of men, whose knowledge 1793. was presumed from their situation and pretensions.

revenue as

An annual surplus of 1,239,241/. from the revenues and commerce of India, A surplus of after paying the Company's Indian charges of every description, was assumed. sumed. Of this magnificent sum, the following distribution was to be made. In the first place, as most due, it was proposed that 500,000l. of it should be annually appropriated to liquidate the debt of the Company contracted in India. But in the next place, it was patriotically determined, that 500,000l. should be annually given to the nation, as a tribute from its Indian dominion. With regard to the remainder of the grand surplus, it was represented by the Indian minister, as no more than equitable, that the meritorious proprietors of East India stock should not be forgotten. He recommended an increase of dividend from eight to ten per cent. By this, 100,000l. more of the annual surplus would be absorbed. A circumstance, which might have excited suspicion, but which appears to have been perfectly guiltless of any such disagreeable effect, was; that, amid all this promise of wealth, the Company was in want of pecuniary assistance; and was to receive immediate authority for raising what was equivalent to a loan of 2,000,000l. It was not indeed to be called a loan. The name of a loan, associated with the idea of poverty, was at this time to be avoided. The Company were to be empowered to add 1,000,000l. to their capital stock, which, being subscribed, on the faith of a dividend of ten per cent., at 200 per cent., produced to the Company's treasury a sum of 2,000,000l. By this, it was said, the Company's bond debt in England would be reduced to 1,500,000l. The dividend upon this new capital would exhaust 100,000l. more of the surplus revenue. Of the appropriation of the remainder, which, to show accuracy, and because even small sums are of great importance, was carried to the last degree of minuteness, it would here, however, be out of place to render any account.

After some affectation of discord between the Board of Control and the Court Company's petition presentof Directors, Mr. Dundas having even pretended in parliament to believe it possi- ed. ble that the Company might decline to petition for the renewal of their charter on the terms which the minister desired to impose, the petition of the Company was presented to the House of Commons, and taken into consideration on the 23d of April.

It was, to some of the opposing members, a source of complaint, when a Ministers opmeasure, on which interests of so much importance depended, and about which pose inquiry. so profound an ignorance prevailed, was to be considered and determined, that

1793.

BOOK VI. a committee, to collect and to communicate information, had not, as on former occasions, preceded the decision for which a call upon the legislature was now about to be made. Such a committee, by which ministerial purposes were more likely at the present moment to be thwarted than served, the ministers represented as altogether unnecessary; because, there was no material circumstance, relating to India, about which there was not, they asserted, sufficient information, in the valuable and numerous documents which they had communicated to the House.

Principal provisions of the new bill.

Salaries given to the Board of Control.

The speech of Mr. Dundas displayed and recommended the projected plan In all the great and leading particulars, the scheme which had been introduced by Mr. Pitt's bill of 1784, and better adapted to ministerial or national purposes by the amendments or declarations of succeeding acts, remained without alteration.

The powers of the Board of Control, and of the Courts of Directors, were established on the same footing on which they had been placed by the declaratory act of 1788. The powers of the Governor-General and his Council, of whom was composed the supreme organ of government in India, with the powers of the Governors and Councils at the subordinate presidencies, remained as they had been established by the act of 1784, and the amending act of 1786. The monopoly of the Eastern trade was still secured to the Company. The appropriations recommended by Mr. Dundas, of a supposed surplus of revenue, were dressed in the formalities of law. The increase of dividend, and the increase of capital, were authorized. And the lease of the exclusive privileges was renewed for a term of twenty years.

Only two alterations were introduced, of sufficient importance to require statement and explanation.

When the bill of Mr. Pitt entered the lists against that of Mr. Fox, the ground of patronage was the field of contention. On this it was, that, as the demerit of the one was to suffer defeat, the merit of the other was to be crowned with victory. On the part, therefore, of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dundas, and their party, was required the reality, or, in place of the reality, the affectation, of a sort of horror, at the enormity of increasing ministerial influence. To evade objections from this source; objections which they themselves had raised to such a height of importance, it was arranged, on the introduction of the plan, that no salary should be annexed to the duties of the Board of Control. These duties were to be executed by Members of His Majesty's Privy Council, who had good emoluments, on some other score, and so little to do for them, as to be very well paid

for discharging the duties of the Board of Control into the bargain. This make- CHAP. VII. shift, unless it be contemplated in the light of a trick to amuse the spectators till 1793. their attention relaxed, when paid functionaries of the usual sort might be quietly introduced, is a species of burlesque on legislation. To attach to one office a salary whose magnitude is out of all proportion to the duties; next to create another office with ample duties but no salary; and then to jumble both sets of duties, however heterogeneous, into one set of hands, exhibits a singular contrast with the rule of securing every service by its own appropriate reward; and paying no more for any service, than the performance of the service strictly demands. The time was now come, when the same aversion to patronage was not necessary to be displayed. It was therefore enacted, that a salary, to be paid by the Company, should be annexed to the office of certain of the Commissioners of the Indian Board; and that, in the appointment of these Commissioners, the circle of the Privy Council should no longer be the boundary of His Majesty's choice.

The second alteration regarded the Indian trade. As an expedient, for soft- Tonnage giver to private ening the opposition of the commercial bodies, it was devised, that the Com- trade. pany should afford annually not less than 3,000 tons of shipping, in which private individuals might on their own account traffic with India, subject to the restriction of not exporting military stores, or importing piece goods, and subject also to the restriction of lodging imports in the Company's warehouses, and disposing of them at the Company's sales.

argumentation

In adducing motives for the approbation of these measures, Mr. Dundas was Mr. Dundas's successful and unsuccessful: unsuccessful in offering any reasons which can now in favour of satisfy an enlightened inquirer, but completely successful in offering reasons his bill. which satisfied the bulk of his auditory. He began with what he knew to be a favourite topic for a British parliament-the wisdom of contempt for theory. On this occasion, however, theory was treated by him with unusual lenity; for though Mr. Dundas affirmed that the theories to which he was opposed did not hold true in the case for which he had to provide; he was not very unwilling to allow, that they held good in all other cases. The propositions which Mr Dundas here dignified by the name of theories were two; the first, That the business of government, and the business of commerce, cannot, with advantage to the governed, be lodged in the same hands; the second, That freedom is the life of commerce, and restraint and monopoly its bane. What argument did Mr. Dundas produce to show that these propositions did not hold true in the case of India? Why this. India, said he, has hitherto been governed in con

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