and the private trade. The East-India sugar imported by the Company fell from 40,241 cwt. in 1814, to 11,370 cwt. in 1822; while the quantity imported by the private trade rose from 9,608 cwt. in 1814, to 215,099 cwt. in 1822. The influence of the Company's commercial residents has prevented the superiority of the private trader from being equally conspicuous in Bengal raw silk; but in China raw silk, while the quantity imported by the Company fell from 138,326 lbs. in 1814 to 88,969 lbs. in 1822, the quantity imported by the private trade rose from 12,303 lbs. in 1814, to 133,706 lbs. in 1822.

Since the Company's dividends are confessedly levied on the people of England, in the shape of artificially-enhanced expenses and profits, and are less than a moiety of the tax to which their monopoly subjects the nation;-since it is admitted that, in their commercial capacity, the Company are positively, and negatively, a great evil, it would follow that sentence of dissolution cannot be averted but by showing that the advantages derived from them in their political character are proportionately great. And if it should indeed be found that the latter preponderate, the result would be without a darallel in any age or country. We should then

be required to acknowledge that that portion of the mere administrative apparatus for the government of India, which is resident in England, could not be provided at a less annual cost than a million. One advocate for the Company has laboured to prove that the attributes for which this price should be paid is their peculiar fitness for the enforcement of the anti-colonial policy which has hitherto been applied to the government of India; their unwearied zeal for restrictions, and inveterate hostility to competition and freedom of every description. To this it may be replied, in the first place, that there is not one obstacle to colonization which might not exist, and be maintained with equal vigour, without the assistance of the Company. Secondly, and more satisfactorily it may be replied, that, granting the efficacy of all the illiberal principles and feelings claimed for the Company, the policy with which they are connected is in itself most erroneous and unjustifiable; incompatible with the improvement of India, and with the extension of its commercial intercourse with England. Having pursued this argument in another place, I shall here only add that if

the extinction of the Company were to bring with it no extinction of their maxims of rule, the mere saving of the expense of a double government in England, and the reduction in the price of tea, would be advantages comparatively insignificant.

Another advocate for the Company is of opinion that a sufficient compensation for these sacrifices is found, not in any peculiar qualifications possessed by the gentlemen who, by dint of wealth, connexions, and longevity, obtain a place in the Committee of Correspondence, but in the check which they exercise on the conduct of the Board of Control. He admits that, in every other department of government, the strength of public opinion has more than kept pace with the increasing patronage of the crown; but so indescribable and incomprehensible is everything relating to India, where "the very names of persons, places, and things are as

foreign to the ear as confusing to the sense of "the English reader," that the control of parliamentary vigilance and public discussion, which, in all other matters, is invaluable and irresistible, would, in respect to Indian ques

* Sir John Malcolm, in his Political History of India.

tions, from indifference or ignorance, either fail to prevent abuses, or give an injurious impulse to the measures of administration. He admits that the Company, by ceasing to be rulers, "and by remaining monopolists, have lost the "consideration which belonged to their former "character; while the odium, ever attached to "the latter, has been increased." Now, Sir John Malcolm does not propose that they should resume their power, or relinquish their monopoly, but only that means should be contrived for giving to men, who have served with distinction in India, easier access to the upper seats in the Court of Directors, and that the Board of Control should interpose its authority less frequently. The functions of an organ so constituted, and so dearly maintained, he esteems of more value than the gratuitous exertions of Parliament and the press.

But the defects of such a scheme are obvious and incurable. In the first place, the Board of Control never can be persuaded to recede an inch from the commanding position which it has held for many years: its tendency must rather be to make its power be felt more distinctly and diffusively from year to year: in proportion to its increased familiarity with the subject it must become more interested in the success, and more

practised in the superintendence of its own plans: habit, ambition, duty, the strongest, the most constant, and the most honourable motives of human conduct must combine to make it identify itself more and more with the success of the Indian government, and to stand forward in the eye of Parliament and of the nation as the responsible administrator. Secondly, under such circumstances it is impossible that men, conscious of talent, and touched with a generous love of fame, could consent to appear in so degraded a theatre; the obstacles presented by the fatigue, humiliation, and expense of the first canvass, which Sir John Malcolm seems to consider the most difficult to be surmounted, are as nothing compared with the total deprivation of consideration and dignity in the office itself. An office in which talent can neither find its appropriate exercise nor reward, can never attract to itself men capable of influencing the conduct of political affairs. Thirdly, whatever may be the private respectability of individual Directors, their want of power, direct or indirect, legal or moral, renders their attempts to impel or restrain the movements of the Board of Control nugatory. If they are independent of ministers, and, therefore, free to express their real sentiments on all occasions, ministers are as completely inde