of the clandeftine trade of Bengal could not, on an average of four years, ending with 1798-9, reafonably be estimated to have exceeded twenty-five lacks of rupees per annum. The seventh, that hence, as well as from a variety of other evidence, it might be fafely concluded, that any increase which had taken place in the courfe of the war, in the trade of foreigners with our fettlements, was the increase of a trade carried on, bona fide, for their own account, and, in a great degree with specie, which they imported to India, and with which they paid for the goods they exported: a trade which ought, in found policy, to be permitted. The eighth, that the trade carried on with Europe, from the Indian fettlements of our enemies, the French, Dutch, and Spaniards, which was faid to have greatly increafed through. the late mifmanagement of the company, flourished, long before the prefent times, in a greater degree than it does now; that it could not have been depressed by any means within the company's power, and that it would not be a wife policy, under the notion of bringing that trade to our ports to nourish, as we thus fhould, the fource from whence it proceeded. With regard to thefe relolutions, Mr. Dundas only paufed in giving his opinion, from not having before him the particular documents and materials on which they were founded.

The thirteenth refolution contained the principles and details of the measure on which the court of directors were difpofed to act with the government or nation. They agreed in opinion with Mr. Dundas, as to the expediency of affording to British residents, who might choofe

to convey their property to Europe in goods, whatever means, in addi- } tion to thofe already fubfifting, might be fairly fufficient to induce them to confign thofe goods immediately to the mother country. For i bringing the whole trade, formed by that aggregate capital, as well as by the confignments of European manufactures, directly to the port of London, they made feveral propofitions: among which the prin cipal were, that, in addition to the quantity of three thousand tons of fhipping, now annually allotted to the exports of individuals from In-› dia, four or five thousand tons more, or as much as might be wanted, fhould be affigned, and that the flipping thus annually employed, fhould be wholly applied to the pri vate traders, and fail from India direally for the port of London, at fixed periods, within the fair-wea) ther feafon. That all commodities, of the produce of the continent, or of the British territories in India, fhould be permitted to be laden on thofe fhips, excepting only piecegoods, raw filk, and faltpetre, which fhould not be laden, except by special licence from the company, or their fervants abroad. That the goods exported on private account, from India, fhould be brought to the company's warehoufes in London, and thence to their fales, in the regular order, fubject to the charge of three per cent. now allowed to the company, for lading, warehou-fing, and felling private goods. That the fhips to be employed in' that fervice thould be built for the purpole by the company, and should be of the defcription belt calculated for the propofed trade. The rate of freight to be the fame with that of the hips chartered for the year! [04]

current

current to the company. That when the private goods provided for exportation from India fhould not serve to fill all the fhips fent out for them, the company fhould put grofs goods into thofe hips on their own account. That if, at any time, the tonnage provided by the company for private exports fhould not be fufficient for all the goods prepared for exportation, it fhould be allowable for the governments abroad, on the part of the company, to freight Indian fhips for the conveyance of fuch goods as could not be otherwife accommodated; and, finally, that no perfon fhould be admitted to embark in this trade, who fhould not be licenced by the company to refide in India..

Mr. Dundas, in his letter of the 21ft of March, already quoted, admitted, "That if the bafis on which this refolution proceeded were admitted to be good, the details feemed to be aptly devifed for the due execution of the principle; but, on this point, he differed in opinion from the directors. He was till an advocate for the admiffion of private and India-built fhips into the commerce between that country and Great Britain. It was his intention to have entered, in his letter, at large into the subject; but fince he had begun to write, he had received, and carefully perufed, a letter of the 30th of September, 1800, recently tranfmitted to the court of directors from the government-general of India; and, as that letter had, with clearnefs and perfpicuity, ably detailed and demonftrated (meaning the propriety of) thofe opinions which he had, from time to time, taken the liberty of laying before the court of directors, on the fubject of Indian trade, he fhould

confider it as an unnecessary waste of time, if he were to trouble the directors with a repetition of the topics therein ftated."-On the fourteenth and fifteenth refolutions, Mr. Dundas did not make any observations. In the former, the committee expreffed, in ftrong terms, their conviction, that the propofals that had been brought forward by certain defcriptions of men for the admiffion of their flips into the trade and navigation between India and Europe, would involve principles and effects dangerous to the interefts both of the company and nation. In the latter, they ftated that the fourteen preceding refolutions would be juftified by documents, fome of them before them, others but lately arrived from India, and not yet perufed, they fuppofed, by Mr. Dundas, with whom they propofed to have a full difcuffion of the fubject.

The marquis of Wellesley's letter, to which Mr. Dundas referred, detailed the particular circumstances that rendered it expedient and neceffary to admit private traders into a participation of the Eaft-Indiacommerce. Proprietors of hips, and freighters in India, had con fidered it to be for their mutual advantage, that they fhould be left to make their arrangements with each other. Both parties were equally averfe to the intervention of the company's agency. On the 5th of October, 1798, was published, in an advertisement, a plan, by which the proprietors of hips were enabled to make a more perfect affortment of the cargoes, to load their fhips in the most advantageous and expeditious manner, to difpatch them at the mott favourable periods of the feafon, and to prevent the lofs, which, under the plan adopted in conformity

comformity to the orders of the directors, 25th of May, 1798, the proprietors of fhips fuftained, by unavoidable detays in the adjuftment of accounts, and in the payment of the freight by the company in England. The advantages at tending the governor-generals plan, are enumerated. He had entertained a confident expectation, that he should have received, at an early period of the feafon, the fanction of the court for reverting to the plan of October, 1798, or for adopt ing fome arrangement equally calculated to facilitate and encourage the private trade between India and England. But he had been difappointed in his expectations of receiving an early and feasonable notification of their final commands: fo that, at the ufual feafon for exportation from the port of Calcutta to Europe, the deficiency of the tonnage provided by the company and expected from Europe, reduced him to the abfolute neceffity of providing a large proportion of Indian tonnage for the fervice of 1800-1, in order to fecure the conveyance of the heavy articles of the company's investment, and to fulfill their legal obligations.

But this plan of the governorgeneral's was not intended by him merely to answer a temporary exigency. It was his opinion that it fhould be rendered permanent. From the quantity of private tonnage now in the port of Calcutta, from the ftate of perfection to which the art of fhip building had already attained in Bengal, promifing a ftil! more rapid progrefs, and fupported by abundant and increafing fupplies of timber, it was certain, that that port would always be able to furnish tonnage, to whatever extent requis

ed, for conveying to the port of London the trade of the private" British merchants of Bengal. The wife policy, the juft pretenfions, and the increafing commercial re-' fources and political power of Great Britain in India, claimed for her fubjects, the largeft attainable fhare in the valuable and extenfive commerce of fach articles of Indian produce and manufacture, as were neceffarily excluded from the company's investment. If the extenfion of indulgences to the British merchants neceffarily involved the admiflion of numerous British merchants into India, the company's government could always, with lefs difficulty, control the operations of the British, than thofe of foreign agents: while the dangers to be apprehended from the views and defigns of foreigners of every defcription, would be greater than any that could poffibly arife from an increafed refort of British fubjects, ander fuch limitations and reftraints as the wifdom of the directors might frame, and the vigilance of their governments in India be enabled to enforce. The rapid growth of the foreign trade, during the laft feafon; the number of foreign fhips actually in the ports of Calcutta; the alacrity, enterprie, and kill of the foreign agents now affiduoully employed in providing cargoes, and the neceflary inaction and languor of the British private trade, embarraffed by the reitraints of the exifting law, created in the mind of lord Wellesley, a ferious apprehenfion, that any farther delay in the decifion of that momentous queftion, might occafion evils, of which the remedy might become hereafter, confiderably difficult, if not abfolutely impracticable.

Under

Under thefe impreffions, the go vernor-general, reverting to the plan of October, 1798, published in an advertisement above noticed, republifh ed it on the 19th of September, 1800, at Fort William, and ordered the governments of Fort St. George and Bombay to publifh correfponding advertisements, at thole prefidencies, with fuch modifications as local circumftances might render indifpenfably neceflary. It would reft with the honourable court whether the plan contained in that advertifement, fhould be rendered per

manent.

The committee appointed to take Mr. Dundas's fecond letter into confideration, objected to the fyftematic eftablishment of any clafs of private fhips, in the commerce and navigation between Great Britain and India, on the fame grounds, on which they had difapproved it, as formerly propofed by Mr. Dundas. But the governor-general's plan, they obferved, was wider in its extent, and involved ftill more dangerous confequences than that of the prefident of the board of controul. It had been hitherto held, that the legitimate and only confiderable object, in enlarging the private trade, ought to be the remittance of the fortunes of British refidents. Mr. Dundas, in his letter of the 21ft of March, fully acceded to this doctrine. But, the governor general, they obferved, on the other hand, diftinctly afferted, in one of the 76 paragraphs into which his letter was divided, "That if the capital of the merchants in India, and the remittance of the fortunes of individuals, fhould not fupply funds fufficient for the conduct of the whole private export trade from India to Europe, no dangerous confequence could refult from applying

to this branch of commerce, capital drawn directly from the British empire to Europe." If the committee could not accede to the principle of Mr. Dundas's plan, much lefs could they accede to that of the marquis of Wellesley's. The genius of the India commerce, according to his plan, muft progreffively tend, more and more, towards an unreftrained, and colonial fyftem.

With the fame views that influenced fir William Pulteney in the. house of commons, Mr. Henchman, in a general court of proprietors of India flock, May 28th, in confequence of a letter fubfcribed by forty-three proprietors, moved the following refolution, "That this. court is highly fenfible of the very great importance of the general trade between India and Europe to the political and commercial intereft of Great Britain, as well as of the Eaft-India-company; that they lament the wide difference of the opinions entertained on the subject by the court of directors on one fide, and the late prefident of the board of commiffioners and the governor general of India on the other. And anxious that the meafures finally to be adopted may be. formed on the fulleft information and matureft deliberation, and thinking that it may eflentially conducę to that defirable end, if the court were affifted by the wifdom and experience of the late governors general, they recommend to the court of directors to transmit a copy of the printed papers to marquis Cornwallis, earl Macarteney, lord Teignmouth, fir John Macpherfon, and Warren Haftings, efq. with a request that they will feverally favour the company with a communication of their advice and opinion

on