The Port Gibson herald, and correspondent. (Port Gibson, Claiborne Co., Miss.) 1848-18??, 1850-08-02
The East India Company.

This mammoth corporation is thus spoken of
by the Christian Enquirer:
The stockholders of this company have never
much exceeded two thousand; and the capital
stock, on which dividends have been paid, at the
largest, has been put at f6,000.000. 1t has
been subject in England to the unwiSe manage.
ment which must always attend a company
whose stockholders and directors are constantly
changing and whose agents and field of opera
tions are distant by half the circumference of
the globe from the centre where measures orgi-'
nate; and besides this, it has had to encounter
the hostility OF the whole commercial class OF
England, formerly shut UP by its monopoly from
the Indian trade, while in India it has contended
for existence on hundred bloody battle fields,
with Dutch and French, and the native mon
arches Of the east. But notwithstanding all
obstacles. it has expelled the Dutch it has anni-
hilated tie power of the French in lndia-baS
subdued one native kingdom after another; Its
factories have grown into States, and these
States into vast and consolidated empire; it has
maintained a standing army larger than that
OF any European power except Russia, /anG
varying at different times, rom one hundred
and fifty thousand to two hundred and ninety
thousand men; it has conducted seiges not less
dreadful than those which drenched the cities Of
Spain in blood, in the peninsuiar war; it has
stormed imperial cities and iortresses almost be-
yond number. So incessant have been its wars,
that for hundred years scarcely day has
passed in which The wild beasts Of the jungles,
or the alarmed inhatitants of the hills, have not
fled before the thunder Of the British cannon
Its bayonets have broken the great power of the
wild Mabratta cavalry, of the wel-discipllned
squadrons of Mysore and of the fanatic courage
Of the Sikhs; it has subdued great and warlike
Kingdoms and not only subdued them, but has
deposed their sovereigns, appropriated their rev.
enues, subverted institutions old as India herself
reconstructed its laws and jurisprudence, and
over vast regions changed the very tenures by
which the soil is held its history is full of vast
schemes-to-Gay Of conquest, tomorrow of So
cial regeneration and mprovement-of skilful
diplomacy, of heroic achievement, of desperate
valor. making good all DEFICIENCIES of numbers
and resources, and 09 names world renowned in
craftsmanship, and war, and literature, and rel-
gion.
This company in England has been composed
of merchants and others, who have lived quietly,
| as good subjects and citizens, unknown and un-
heard of; yet they have appointed, and, at their
pleasure, recalled governors general, who have
exercised in India a despoiic authority over the
fortunes o: more than one hundred millions Of
people, which the monarch Of England dares
not exercise in his island domain. Before its
charter expired in 1888, it had subdued nearly
the whole peninsnlar, from Cape Comorin to
the impossible SHOWS of The Himalaya noun
tains. And since then the career of conquest
has not paused. The cannon of England have
burst open the mysterious gates Of China; she
is trying new experiments in civilization among
the savages Of Borneo; she has added the Pun
jaub TO her empire, and thousand miles west
Of the Indus, reversing the course of Alexan-
der's conquests, penetratngamong the wild and
warlike tribes Of Affghanistan, where she met
the fercest resistance; her unwearied battaions
have reached the confines OF. Persia, and the
echoes of her advancing drums have startled the
sentinels who at night kept watch al the out
post OF Russian power.