The Sun.
London, England, 1812-04-03 00:00:00

One part oir the present system, and a henefiCial
one fur all panics, is to hate only one place of sale
for Indian goods,—that k, London ; to' make all
3 Iles by public auction at stated periods, and these
sales to be regulated a',d conducted by•the Com-
pany. ' With the proposed enlargements, it would
seem hardly possible -to continue that practice.--
D tfetent towns would have their own sates, at their
own times. • Individuals might fri-quentlY choose
to dispose of their goods by private' bargain. The
g.,neral resort of buyers which the sales were wont'
to bring to London, a ',resort often proddilive
other commercial speculations, would thus be at an
end ; and the benefit derived from public andion,
when that was the sole mode, would be lost in the
midstof many private sales and competitions; but
to dispbse of the goods of the Company by private
negotiation, might open a door/ to many abuses,
which would render that mode totally unsuitable for
_their business. The Company, with such a com-
petition, could not go on to purchase the goods of
India. With the cessation of their Indian trade;
their Indian stihordinate factories, which have been
reared in the course of more than a century, and
which are the seats of the best-. manufactures pro-
duced in the country, must be abandoned, alid all
the ,commercial branch of their civil servants be
thrown out of employ. Their purchases of goods
at home, for the Indian market, must also cease,
with the- circulation of money which has enabled
them to support their credit in England; anti to pro-
vide, for the payment of bills, which it has been long
and necessarily the praaice to draw on tlem. from
India ; a practice which, under, such a change 'of
circumstances, could not be continued ; and, in ge-
neral, the great aid which the political affairs of Eti-
tish India have, at all tanes, derived trnm the com-
mercial credit and resources of the Company, with
the reciprocally beneficial co-operation of Ihe differ-
ent parts of the Company's system, must thus ,be
destroyed. In like manner the Company must cease
to employ the numerals claps of excellent ships they
have engaged tOr the Indian tradel ships COD3llll6i-
ed for warlike defence as well As for commerce, and
rendered expensive only, by being necessarily des-
tined and fitted for the performance of political ser-
vices. • Those ships the Company have contracted to_
employ for the term of their duration ; there is a
large capital embarke4 in. them, and they can be
employed in no other way than in that for which
they were built. When they can no longer be-kept
up, the means of conveyance they have hitherto so
well afforded for troops, and the large supplies of
naval and inilitaty stores annually sent to India must
be lost.

But there is no reason to believe the evils would
end here. The monopoly of the China trade, which
iOs proposed to continue, would not be safe. Bri,
tisiv ships, when permitted to range at pleasure
through the Indian seas, however interdided. from
that trade, would attempt to participate in it.either
by resorting to it as the country ships do, under.co-
lour of carrying on the coasting trade; or by other
means obtaining teas, and the other productions of
China, at the most convenient Indian ports. Love
of gain, disappointments in other ways, the hope of
impunity,-would stimulate their conduttorS to break
through restridions imposed in this country. British
subjects,who now. navigate the Indian Seas, sail from
some one of our established settlements there, and are
amenable to the laws of it : it would not be so, with
men having no domicile in India. In ranging the
numerous islands and coasts of the Eastern Seas,
where they would be unknown, and whence they
could not be loilowed to England by complaints, the
probability of impunity might tempt them to commit-
upon the weak natives, accustomed to repose confi-
dence in Englishmen, acs of injustice and licentious-
ness, which would wound the national character,
raise complaints throughout India, and set the-people
against us. ' In this manner the Portuguese for-
merly rendered themselves odious- in the East, and
contributed to the downfall of their own power. In
China, where the effeds of such a spirit would be
most to be feared, we could exercise no authority
sufficient to cent:oul men not within the reach of
the Indian. Governments, or to defeat, tlmir schemes
and, associations for eluding the laws. Pra&ice
would embolden them, and time increase their.
numbers. It is hardly conceivable they would not
venture upon irregularities which would offend the
Chinese Government, who, whilst the delinquents
escaped to England with impunity,would, doubtless,
take satisfaction of the national fadory ; and the
pride and jealousy of that government, alarm-
ed by repeated instances of this nature, from
the desultory visits of a new paler of English-
men, insubordinate to the representatives of the
nation, might determine to dismiss the whole to-
gether. If this extreme case be not supposed,
which, however, is too probable and too momen-
tous in its consequences to be hazarded, can it be
doubted, that whilst the duties on tea continue at
even 'the fourth part of what they are at present,
private English ships adventuring to the -Eastern seas
will not, by means of country vessels and- interme-
diate pits, if by no other means, procure teas and
revive the practice of smuggling them into this king-
dom The consequence seems inevitable, and the
ships of our own country, especially if, allowed to
choose their port of discharge, as the proposed change
;seems to rennire, would have facilities, which those
of foreign Europe or. America could not comma eid.—
In these ways, the China monopoly of the Company,
reduced in its profits would be rendered likewise
insecure, and in the end ndtenable;, and the noble
fleet of ships employed in that trade by the Company,
must be also laid aide. How the immense revenue,
now derived by Government from the very high
duties on tea, could, under such circumstances, be
realized, or a substitute found for them, may be an
important, and, to all appearance, a most difficult
'subject of inquiry.

But a more serious ,consequence than all these
would still remain. A free trade to India would,
unavoidably, draw after it the residence of Hume.;
roux and, continually increa,ina Europeans .there,
whatever prohibitions might at first be opposed to
their scaling in the country'. When all restraint
to the importation of ships and goods 13 taken off,
men must be allowed to follow their property, and
to remain.at the place where they land it till they
haye disposed of it c they must be allowed to navi-
gate the Indian seas, and to return to the,saml place
when their business calls them : they will thus, in-
sensibly., and with hardly reasonable grounds for op-