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

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