The Sun.
London, England, 1812-01-25 00:00:00

Dl,l.

Among, the various topics of- discussion which
Parliament may be expected to entertain in the cour,e
of the Session, few will be found, more really
iah-
portant, and of more vital conseqtvnce to the isi 'e‘-..
rests of the Mother .C6Untry than those conneaed
with the existing state of our Indian Empire.

It has recently been observed by a periodical wri-
ter (contemplating the termination of the Company's
Charter), that a crisis is- fast approach-jug when
we. must make our eleMion bztween.the.present and
a ditferent system.", 'With somewhat of asindiar
feeling, we pro?eed in the best exercise. of our duty
to the public, to lay before them some points :Mate-
rially connetled with this sublet), and to throw such
light upon them as may eventually prove serviceable
to those individually concerned, as well as to the
public in general.

Much clamour has at various intervals been raised
in this country, respe6ting the vast sums said to have
been expended on our wars in India, more especially
in those undertaken during the period of the Mar-
quis Wellesley's government. To enable us to
form a cornea estimate of the real balance of profit
and loss to the'Empire at Farg,-, upon the tleged
wasteful expenditure,we hote,had,tecourse to a wry
imp°, tart official document, bearing date the 21st
of June, 1811 i entitled—" Report of :a &leaf Com-
mittee of the House of Commons-upon the affairs of
the East India Company ;" and tromthis: unques,
tionable source of ioformaiinn, we are enabk

state the following tarts, equally interesting aud au-
thentic, which gill put it fully in the power of the
public to draw their ovtn conclusions.

It appears from 'this Report, that the whole of
the surplus Charge, for a period •of 17 yeais,
from the 30th April, t 792, to. the 30th April,tBo9;
of the Governments of India, for wars, including
EuroPe as well as Asiai'and for port,ical charges of
eve!), descrip,tion,'amoon'is to 5,078,0151.

The .Permanent Annual Lcrease of Revenue in
the same petiod, arising entitely out of tetritOry,
accioired during Lord WellesleY's Administration,
or from salutary financial regulations originating in
him, is nearly eight tnillions sterling !

:The permanent increase of Debt during the same
period has been' 20,905,1941. to meet whiclythere
has been an increase of assets (independently of an
increase of income, consisting of stores, goods, and
property of various descriptions), to the value of
a,298,6661. leaving -a net increase of debt, daring
seyenleen .years, of 12,506,5281. an aggregate sum,
our readers will remark, not amounting, to much
more than a year and a hall's amount of increase of
permanent revenue ; nor can it be asserted, that. the
" Assets" Pre not an inVailable resource, since it
appears from the same authority, that a constituent
part of them is Cash, to the Company's treasuries,
amounting to 5,6 ) 5,4941.

NOr is it entirely correct, to charge upon the war
expenditure in India, or even upon lildian etpen-
diture of any nature, the- whole of the existing debt.
Tlis will appear eviklent, from the faEt, that
844,3721. have been admitted by Parliament as
just claims upon the Public,- and leave been accord-
ingly paid at home. Indeed, the general result of
the whole statement appears to be, that the expellee
to England, on account of India, during a period of
seventeen years, has been little more than a million
and a half sterling, a fa& which the following brief
statement will lolly establish :

Supplies from England to India, in goods, stores,
Lillis of Exchange, bullion, &c. &c. tor the
period of seventeen years - • - ,C433203,A1
Supplies from India to England, in the
shape of investments, &c. &c. in . .
the same time _ .. £33,956,26;
_ ... .

Add.claims recognised and paid by the
public 8,212,372

Balance .
,70!

At the expence then of the above balance have we
established our empire in the Peninsula of India, on
an immovable basis ; and have been enabled,
through means derived in a great measure from it,
to acquire those gems of no mean lustre—Ceylon,
the Wands of France arid Bourbon, with Batavia and
its dependencies, to set in the diadem of the Unit-
ed Kingdom ; not to speak of our having-also been
enabled thereby to . assist in a very considerable
degree towards the expulsion of the Frenct from
Egtrpt.
From the statements here given, our Readers, we
trust will derive no small satiataalion, which %s ill be
further increased, when we- add, (s!iIl deriving our.
information from the same authority) that in the
year 1810-11, there will be an aelual surplus reve-
nue in India, after defraying charges of ever:), de-
scription. Of this expected surplus the Governor-
General in Council, in a letternuderdatelof the 14. h
January, 181 t, remarks,.that " it is likely to be
drawn from our Indian territory during a period of
actual war, when it is -found necessary to maintain
our Military Establishments. upon a high scale,
when the charges for particular services are neces-
sarily high, and when 'considerable advances are
made from the resources of India for the general
service of the Empire." Lord Minto further adds,'
" that satisfittory, too, as the result must appear,-
when it is remembered that this surplus has been
produced under ev-ery disadvantage, we hope to see
a very considerable improvement effected in the en-
suing;year."

, We shall here for the present leave this important
subject, satisfied that what we have laid before the
public' is abundantly sufficient to refute at once and
for ever, all the absurd calumnies which the blindest
prejudice, the meanest jealousy, and the most in‘e-
terate malignity, hate, at variocspeiiods; and on va-
riOus occasions, heaped ui an the Go%ernment
Lord Wellesley in „India. We by no means wish to
deny their respeelive meri.s to Sir G. Barlow, Lord
Minto, or to the Court Direaors, for the shale
that may be jus ly due to each and all ot. them, with
reference to the present flourishing state of.lndia.„7--
But let us never forget, that it is to the Noble Mar-
quis that we are really indebted for the sow ees of its
present prosperity, nd for that "extension, internal
improvement, and additional sectfrity, of its Empire,
at this moment, compared with 1792 ;" to which
circumstande, as the Report justly rasons, " The
present high state of public credit is justly attri-
butable.".