East India trade

“ West India trade left blank by the suspension of the 12th article. East India trade subjected to a condition of residence, rendering it precarious, and restricted to a landing of the goods exported in the United States, not known to have ever been imposed in any way similar, on any other nation trading to Bengal, while all nations are constantly allowed an equal liberty of trading there with ourselves. ”

“ It is very observable, that the objections which have been made by the East India Company to the admission of ships, returning from India, to import and dispose of their cargoes at any other place than the Port of London, are not founded so much upon any statement of the injury which the trade of the Company would sustain by admitting them, as upon a provident regard for the adventurers themselves, and a caution held out to them not to entertain an expectation of benefiting by any commercial speculation in India ”

“ The reason is plain in a few words; our East India trade is all carried on, or most part of it, by an exportation of bullion in specie, and a return of foreign manufactures or produce; and most of these manufactures also, either trifling and unnecessary in themselves, or such as are injurious to our own manufactures. The solid goods brought from India, which may be said to be necessary to us, and worth sending our money for, are but few; for example,
1. The returns which I reckon trifling and unnecessary, are such as China ware, coffee, tea, Japan work, pictures, fans, screens, &c. ”

“ Those who wish to send goods to India are therefore highly indebted to the Company; and as to the imports I will ask the public only one simple question: Have East India commodities risen in price, notwithstanding the heavy duties and increased expences of ship-building, and every article relating thereto, so much as West India produce? ”

“ In spite of the march of time, in spite of all the improvements in commerce and the development of the world, in spite of the spread of industrialism and the growing demands of democracy, in spite of all the vast sums of money which had been on the aggregate extracted from the East, in spite, finally, of the many abuses of which the East India Company or its servants had been guilty, this exclusive privilege of trade had been withheld for over two centuries from the other persons or corporations of the kingdom. ”

“ The East India Company rose from being a private venture of a few enterprising merchants to become a gigantic corporation of immense political power, with its own governors, its own cavalry, artillery and infantry, its own navy, and yet with its trade-monopoly and its unsurpassed “regular service” of merchantmen. The latter were the largest, the best built, and the most powerfully armed vessels in the world, with the exception only of some warships. ”

“ We call the East India trade, not only the trade in things from India itself, such as pepper, cotton, muslin, diamonds, and other things that come from that country, but the trade in tea, and silk, and nankeen, and ivory, from China ”

“ To give perfection to the great object here sketched out, it will be indispensably necessary that the local authorities in India should direct their most serious attention to this subject. As our Indian empire is our only security for our Indian trade, so our Indian trade must be rendered an object of vigilant concern to those who administer the Government of that empire. From the multiplicity and importance of their other avocations, that trade has not hitherto received all the consideration to which its high value is entitled ”

“ What these causes are he thus explains:—"The export trade to India can never be extended to any degree, proportionate to the wealth and population of the Indian Empire; neither can the returns upon it be very profitable to individuals. Those [Pg 72] who attend to the manners, the manufactures, the food, the raiment, the moral and religious prejudices of that country, can be at no loss to trace the causes why this proposition must be a true one." ”

“ The evidence which has been produced demonstrates, that neither the manners, raiments, nor prejudices of Hindostan, are of a nature to impede the introduction of articles of European manufacture; and it thus proves, that the causes assigned for the limitation of our export trade, are not calculated to impose any such limitation. What, then, it may be asked, are the causes, why the consumption of the manufactures of Europe in India has in no degree kept pace with the extension of our territories, and of their population? ”

“ It would be very unbecoming in me to suppose for a moment, that the East-India Company would hesitate to allow those privileges to their fellow-subjects which are permitted to foreigners in a trade, that is so much out of the line of their own commerce, and therefore cannot be injurious to it. ”

“ That if any manufacturer or merchant can find out an article that will sell in India, the company so far from preventing his doing so, afford him facilities not otherwise attainable. No mistake can in fact be greater than to say, with the uninformed and misled public, that the East India Company is a monopoly, and injures trade by preventing our merchants and manufacturers from having a scope for their capital and industry. ”

“ But it is NOT SO with regard to the chief seats of Indian commerce; they will find, that they cannot arbitrarily exclude British subjects from those seats, beyond a limited time; that they cannot debar the nation the beneficial use of them; and that they will not be suffered to render them unavailable, or unprofitable. As soon as the India Trade shall be thrown open, the ports of India will necessarily become open; and, if the Company should then search for their private right to close them, they will find, that it is merged in the public right to use them ”

“ But if it should be thought too burdensome for a company in so flourishing a condition, and consequently engaged in so extensive a commerce as the East India Company is, to undertake such an expedition, merely to serve the public, promote the exportation of our manufactures, and increase the number of industrious persons who are maintained by foreign trade ”

“ The English, French, Swedes, and Danes, have all followed their example; so that no great nation of Europe has ever yet had the benefit of a free commerce to the East Indies. No other reason need be assigned why it has never been so advantageous as the trade to America, which, between almost every nation of Europe and its own colonies, is free to all its subjects. The exclusive privileges of those East India companies, their great riches, the great favour and protection which these have procured them from their respective governments, have excited much envy against them. ”

“ It is deserving of observation, that whatever alterations took place in the channel through which the India trade was carried on, whatever were the vicissitudes or the difficulties, the trade itself never was suspended; so great was the propensity of those who were affluent in the West, to enjoy the productions of the East. ”

“ It is not necessary to dwell on this point; it is an evident fact that the East India goods are far cheaper than they would be if brought over by individual merchants, and the supply is more regular. If sales are slow the Company keeps its goods at its own loss, with admirable good nature, or at least with admirable sang froid, and it never creates an artificial scarcity to enhance the price. The sales are by fair competition and without favour; what would the public wish or desire more? ”

“ The General Society possessed the privilege of an export and import trade with India, with the power of bringing their import cargoes from India to the OUT-PORTS of the kingdom, in the same manner as is proposed by Government at the present day; with this only difference, that the General Society of Merchants were not restricted as to the ports at which they should enter, whereas Government have now proposed, that merchants should be restricted to such ports as can best afford the means of guarding against the depredations of smuggling. ”

“ But it was not till the year 1730, the third year of the late King, that the Company obtained a true and positive perpetuity of duration for their Body Corporate; at which time an Act was passed, empowering them to continue to trade to the East Indies, as a Company of Merchants, although their exclusive right to the trade, and their power of administering the government and revenues of India, should be determined by Parliament. ”

“ But the most valuable of all were the ship’s papers found aboard, which disclosed the long-kept secrets of the East Indian trade. Therefore, this fact, taken in conjunction with the arrival of Candish the year following, and the wonderful incentive to English sea-daring given by the victory over the Spanish Armada—the fleet of the very nation whose ships had kept the English out of India—will prepare the reader for the memorial which the English merchants made to Queen Elizabeth, setting forth the great benefits which would arise through a direct trade with India. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the Company had been managing their affairs with too little regard to economy. Their ships were fitted up with too much expense for the passengers. They were paying £40 a ton as against £25 paid by other traders. The East India Company’s ships carried much larger crews than other ships. The former used to have one man to every ten or twelve tons, though the ships engaged in the West Indian trade carried one man to every twenty-five tons. ”

“ The trade to India, in its present state, produces a great influx of wealth to the country, though but a very moderate average profit to the Proprietors as a trading company. We must, therefore, risk [15] this, if we consider that the French had an East India Company in 1789, and that by way of being liberal and free, they did what an inconsiderate public want us to do. They abolished the company, and let every one do as he pleased, when the trade vanished like a dream. ”

“ East India goods of every kind. Philadelphia and New York have begun a trade to the East Indies. Perhaps Boston may follow their example. But their importations will be sold only to the country adjacent to them. For a long time to come, the States south of the Delaware, will not engage in a direct commerce with the East Indies. They neither have nor will have ships or seamen for their other commerce: nor will they buy East India goods of the northern States. Experience shows that the States never bought foreign goods of one another. ”

“ For a long time259 merchant enterprise had realised that Eastern trade would be extended, and that considerably, if it were thrown open and competition were allowed to have its way. So in the year mentioned the monopoly was done away with as regards India. The British public were henceforth allowed to trade with that country unconditionally, except that it must be done in vessels of not less than 350 tons. ”

“ Her supply of gold she obtained not as did Europe from America in the 16th century by conquest or rapine, but by the more natural and peaceful method of commerce, "by the exchange of such of her productions as among the Indians were superfluities but were at the same time not only highly prized by the nations of Western Asia, Egypt, and Europe, but were obtainable from no other quarter except India, or from the farther East by means of the Indian trade." ”

“ The charge was to be £5 a ton on the outward voyage in times of peace, and. £15 homeward. But in the time of war the rates should be increased if the Board of Control approved. It was further stipulated that his Majesty’s subjects might be allowed to export from England to India any produce or manufactured goods except military stores, ammunition, masts, spars, cordage, pitch, tar and copper. But in all cases of exports and imports in this Anglo-Indian trade the goods must travel in the Company’s ships. ”