The National Register. — London, England, 1812-04-05 00:00:00

1' APRIL INDIA HOUSE. EAST INDIA CHARTER. • Thursday a numerous meeting of East India Stock Proprietors at tended a General Court of Directors, held at the India House, for the special purpose of taking into consideration the Papers read at the last Court, respecting the Correspondence between the Directors and his Majesty's Government, on the subject of renewing the Company's Charter. After the minutes of the last Court had been read, Mr. R. JACKSON rose, and stated, that in this discussion he consi dered the question entitled to their most mature consideration ; not as a question of interest to the East India Company, but as a matter of vital importance to the Empire at large. In that point of view, he was persuaded the Directors and the Court would be ready to take it. The interests of the Proprietors in this case, was the interest of the country. The question was, whether, after the most Anxious perusal of the Papers relating to the Correspondence, they would consent to receive their Charter, under peculiar circumstances, reonely, that of 'opening the trade to India, and giving private persons liberty not only to export goods to India in their own ships, but the privilege of bringing to Eng land the produce of that country. The simple question was, whether or no it would be to their interest and the interest of the country to open the trade. As to the question relating to the disposal of the Com pany's army, that appeared to be put out of the questii,n, as it was to remain, subject to regulations. The China trade was also to be retained. In discussing the policy of an open trade, they would all be ready to admit, that if the Company, for want of capital, was to give up that point, that the British Merchant was only entitled to the benefit. He made this observation, because the Acts passed in 1797, on the American Treaty, and the Navigation Act, were more in favour of America and foreigners than our own merchants. The Scotts, Barings, and others, British merchants, would have realized all the expectations which Government had fixed op foreigners, had they been admitted to the trade at an earlier perio4i: On the general system of an open trade, he predicted the worst consequences. All that the Company had done for the Country had been the effect of their privilege. Free trade would produce colonization, which could not fail to produce the greatest mis fortunes, not only to their trade as a Company, but to the interests of the Country. There was another point which apt eared to be over looked In the Company's concerns; he alluded to the sale of goods by an inch of candle, a most impartial mode of sale, and highly beneficial to the Public. With respect to their general claims on the Govern ment, they were intitled .to every indulgence for the aid they had af forded. They had employed in 1793 not le,s than 10,000 tons of snip ping. The same had been greatly increasing of late, and it had con sisted principally of ships of war, carrying great numbers of seamen. With respect to duties, they had viid enough to insure from Govern ment almost a carte blanche on the r..,newal of their Charter. I. 17: . )0 they paid 300,0001. in 1793 one million. It had beeh a million p...r annum up to MOS, when it was two millions five hundred thousand pounds. During the last five gears, four millions annually had been put into the treasury of the country. He then reviewed ail our runque,ts in the Ea.st, and the extension of the territory in all of which had been attained by the h,y,dty, patriotism, and industry of the Com pany, though Minister . , had made it a sine qua ,wet to surrender the trade by which all those advantages had beet; acquired. In taking away their privileges, it was just that the Company sho::1 , 1 be rennincrated after the rate of five per cent. to be paid them from the trade taken away. He concluded by moving in substance— " That the Court, on perusal of the Papers, expressed a high sense of the manner in which the Directors had maintained the nezotiation and the points advantageous to them. The court at the same time observed, with great concern, that no proposition had been suggested of an increased dividend to be granted to the Company, which had been proposed at the renewal of their Charter, and partly acceded to in 1793: 1 hey expressed a hope that the Director % would not lose sight of this object in the continuation of the negotiations. After sonic observations by Mr. G. Juhntone, Mr. RiEby, and Mr. Lowndes, Mr. GRANT rose and said, it appeared that negotiations had been en tered intu with the Board of Control, tending to ern the freedom of trade to the East Indies, which had been hitherto solely pess,?-.%cd by the East India Company. Papers to that effect had been primed, and put into the hands of the Proprietors, and which, in ore set:cc:nee, he would declare, conceded every thing to the Government and secured nothing.—The Ministry had received very plain and unembarrassed proposals from the Company, and to which they had returned an ..newer not at all explicit ; but which tended more to distract than instruct. But it had been represented that the Ministry had acted cnn,onant to the general impulse of popular opinion, which cried bitterly for a ois • solution, or else amelioration, of the restrictions on general trade, contained in the Company's Charter. With all due deference to publi: opinion he would roundly assert, that Ho body of men ever existed, who, for two or three years back, received more signal injustice front the lips of popular opinion, than the Company of which he was a Member. They had been represented as a Company of a dangerous mixture of warlike and commercial terror and interest, which it was improper and injurious to permit by charter to continue. It was very true, that during the course of two centuries, they had gradually acquired I TIIE NATIONAL REGISTER. 209 great pro.eminenee in tommerce, and by military exploits had annexed a vast tract of country to their dominions, 'Until the envy of the world was raised against them; but they were forced into conquest by the conduct of their enemies, who would have, without any compunction, established themselves in their place, had Britain appeared reluctant to wield the sword in defence of her commerce. When he had exam ined the whole extent of concessions which had been made to the Government,lhe could not refrain from expressing his concern that more inclination had not been shown en their part. to inform the Proprietors what particular benefits were to be bestowed in revirn. General offers were indeed held out, but no information nor even satisfaction could accrue from such vague assurances; there had been no satisfactory ex planation, either, of 'the reasons which induced Government to open the commerce, and he regarded the opinions thrown forth by the mer chants of Liverpool, as the desires anxiously expressed of a body of men who appeared extremely fond of transferring the trade of India to themselves ; their opimons therefore, could only be regarded as those of a rival in commerce, wh ose interest made their assertions suspicious. He was extremely sorry that Government should haSse all at once deter mined to open the trade to India, without first having adopted some progressive mode, which would have come gradually on withoyt alarm ing the Company by the immediate deterioration of their trade. Even the late I.ord Melville himself, a man sufficiently sanguine in his expecta tions of splendid results from the India trade, had expressed a desire in the House of Commons, in the Session of 1801, to have the original free and Occlusive grant to the Company softened down by degrees, for he could not consent that an ancient system should be overturned by a mo mentary impulse of even the wisest Administration. Bert the present Government kid determined to open the trade freely, without divulg ing any distinct arrangements to supply the place of the original sys tem, and he was anxious that some definite concessions on the part of Government should be made before the ratification took place,'lest they should, by the hasty admission of restrictions not fully developed, disarrange and distract the whole order of their commerce. He heartily agreed with that part of the Resolution which permitted no vessels to be employed in the India trade under four hundred tt.ns burden, because, by committing their,property to vessels of lighter burden, they might he exposed to immense loss of property in those extensive tracks of Sir.lS through which the shipping required to pass. As to the expectations de scribed to have been indulged in by the Public when the Charter was re newed, in 1;93, he could only say that such expectations were the ema nations of warm political minds, who did not pause to calculate on the mischievous effects of a war on which they were at that period entering. Since the commencement of the war the Company had wholly lost nine millions of money by freight alone, and had contracted besides a debt to a censidet able anteunt, all occasioned by a conflict for superiority which had committed more dreadful devastations on cottons:see than any king dom or era had ever witnessed. He deemed it improper to urge an in crease of the dividends, and thought, under the existing uhfavourable situation of the country, that all such determination should be dropped as a desire utterly hopeless. He concluded by moving, as an Amend theitt to the orizi pal Motion, that the following clause should be added That the Court could not contemplate without aFprehension the free admission of att unrestricted trade, lest it should operate (isad van tageou,ly to their territorial possessions, and hinder them from engaging all t h..se itmeneities which the Government lied promised they shuted continue or be conceded to thee trade. They further expressed adi sire that sonic me r definite art angement should be made respecting the rights to be eeje).ed by individual traders, and for securing the possession of individual property." Mr. Bose ts feJET (the Chairman) said, when he took his seat in the Court at the a}; pointed hour, he did it v ith a strong feeling that he should have little oct-won to trespass upon the patience of the Meeting by any remarks of his owl: ee hatever ; but the speech of the Hon. Gentleman who.had just sat down rendered it necessary for him to cast that deter ruination aide, and in justice to himself and those amongst whom he was placed, to rise and repel some. of the assertions so resolutely made. Ile shared, ss ith the Hon. Gentleman, a strong sense of the honour of the l'roprietors. and of the honest polity with which they desired their conceres should be conducted. But the Hon. Gentleman seemed to be lieve that a streng party around participated with him in the hostility which he had contessed he entertaine-d towards the measures pursued by the body of Directors.—(NN, no, nu ! all around the benches,.—With the Hon. Gentleman, he felt fully conscious too of the importance of tit* present measures, which would, in truth, effect a radical change in those advantages which they possessed by the old Charter. But the Hon. Gentleman had expressed himself ratherstrongly when he said, that 2.11, had been conceded on one side, and nothing on the other. Was he pre pared to say, 'het the advantages attendant on the establishment of the army was welling ?—(lfccrr, herr! )—Besides, the NLinister had pledged his assteraeCe of pecuniary assistance; yet the Hen. Gentleman ex claimed, idl that was nothing.—( Hew.. hear, hear!) —Was the exclu sive traffic with China nothing ?—(lit'ar, hear, hear , !)—'rhe Ministc r, it was true, had not siguenandsealed any engage meat whatever, but r.e had done what every other amicable Ministerihad done throug hout the history t f the Company's affairs, he bad pledged himself, so far as private honour and public interest permitted, to ',Lye the negotiation ratified in all its extent. - - - - The motion of Mr. Tackr.on, with the amendment proposed by Mr. Grnit, %N ern then read and agreed to with much approbaticn. The C unite at )1 mentioned to the meeting, %bat the Vesicles ptopo4e4 '1