Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1858-09-17
From the London Times, Sept. IL
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA TRANSFERRED FROM TUE
East INDIA co. TO Tile DROWN.

EAST INDIA co. TO THE CROWN.
To-day the East India Co., ceases to hold
place among States and Sovereignties. Like
the many princes whom it has deposed from
power. and left in the enjoyment of revenues
and titles, it has long been deprived OF ac-
tual dominion. The Company has been on
" name, and an income; or only adding to
those what India herself supplied to her con-
querors, the modest Offices OF information
and advice. But as the Great Mogul no lon
ger exists, even in name, the East India Com
pany has now wholly ceased from political
existence This day Queen Victoria becomes
the Sovereign of India without any fiction or
tradition of the past coming between her and
her Just titles Just, and long unjustly with
held, they undoubtedly are, for it is, in fact,
the British Parliament and people that have
always ruled India. They have supplied the
policy, the men, the money, the system, and
all that makes empire. Without the snew
and bone of those classes from which our ar
my has been recruitcd-without the enter
prise and courage of our young cadets-with-
out our education and our natural sagacity-
without our overlooking capital, the wisdom
of the rulers, and those institutions which
| give all men among us the hopes and the
means to risc-the East India Company
would have been utterly poweress Yet
| there is also power in a name. The Compa-
ny has found power in name, and the name
OF Queen Victoria will now be u tower of
strength. The changes that embody this al
teration of title are not without force. To-
day all the civil officers of the Company be-
comes Her Maiestys servants: the military
and naval force of the Company become the
Indian Army and Navy, Ilenceforth war
will be declared, peace contracted, and trea-
ties made in her name. In her name laws
will be made and administered, debts con-
tracted, public works done, and all that
makes up the government of a people.
The East is the region of great empires,
and the nature of the people, as well as the
physical peculiarities of the continent, arc
favorable to rapid conquest and acquisition
Ideas conquer and govern there as well as
armies and warriors. But the story
of the East India Company is the strangest
of them all In little more than century
and half it has won and attached to its
rule a greater area, and several times the
number of people, than ever tell before tc
any conqueror, or family Of conquerors. In
our times a small company of merchants SCI
up factory on the banks of the Hooghly
and within the lifetime of two men who
might have talked with one another, the,
that factory at least a seventh part of thu
whole human species. Natural obstacles a
lone have checked their progress But fol
the mountainous deiiles of Cabul the triple
range Of the Himalayas, sandy deserts, anc
seas, they would have pushed in all direc
tons still further.
The career of the East India Company
dates from an epoch when the settlement o
our Constitution, the restriction of the pre-
rogative, the establishment of religion, Ii
berty, and the Punishment of a dynasty in
curably hostile to these changes, excited tn,
alarm of all Europe, partly for their OWL
sake, partly for our own. The history o.
England, it is sometimes said, ceases to b.
interesting after the expulsion of the Stuart
and the settlement of the succession by Ac
of Parliament. But it is since that date tina
it has become the history of the world. W.
may read but little of it, but its facts ar
ever before us in the reduction and in tn
peopling of continents and the establishment
of our name on every ocean and every shore
India itself forms II prodigious episode tina
outshnes all the older achievements of on
race. All we gained and lost in France, al
our still more bootless enterprises in earle
or later days, even our conquests and lossc
in the New World. fell far short of the dom
inion won by the superhuman yalOr ant
consummate policy in far distant Asia
is impossible not to regard so great priz
and SO valuable an inheritance without som
misgiving us to its security, nor can tina
misgTing be removed by any change of hand
on name, or mode of administration. Tn
greater the stake, the greater the anxiety
So we JON very heartily in the good wishe
and the prayer with which the East lndi
Company resigns the sovereignty into tn
hands of the Queen. That fpcace shall b
speedily restored, and that India may noN
enter ON path of improvement in some de
gree comparable to that of Europe and Amcri
ca, is all that we may now hope for
Room for conquest there is none, and its spi
rit has now received severe rebuke. Blu
there is no reason whatever, either in tn
country, OF the race, or the Government, wh
India should not receive all those materia
Improvements which have altered the face q
this Continent, and even the New World
1t is chiefly for backwardness in these thing
that the mixed government hithert
adopted for India, has been tried and foun
wanting. Should the simpler government
in the name of the Queen be found equal
wanting, patriotism itself will hardly regar,
British rule as a blessing for India.