BOOK I. An indenture tripartite, including the Queen and the two East India Companies, was the instrument 1702. adopted for giving legal efficacy to the transaction. For equalizing the shares of the two Companies, the following scheme was devised. The London Company, it was agreed, should purchase at par as much of the capital of the English Company, lent to government, as, added to the 315,000l. which they had already subscribed, should render equal the portion of each. The dead stock of the London Company was estimated at 330,000l.; that of the English Company at 70,000l.; whereupon the latter paid 130,000l. for equalizing the shares of this part of the common estate. On the 22nd July, 1702, the indenture passed under the great seal; and the two parties took the common name of The United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies.1 On the foundation on which the affairs of the two Companies were in this manner placed, they continued with considerable jarrings and contention, especially between the functionaries in India, till the season 1707-8, when an event occurred, which necessitated the accommodation of differences, and accelerated the completion of the union. A loan of 1,200,000l., without interest, was exacted of the two Companies for the use of government. The recollection of what had happened, when the body of private adventurers were formed into the English East India Company, made them dread the offers of a new body of adventurers, should any difficulty be found on their part. It was necessary, therefore, 2 Bruce, iii. 486 to 491. СНАР. 5. that the two Companies should lay aside all separate BOOK I. views, and cordially join their endeavours to avert the common danger. It was at last agreed, that all differences subsisting between them should be submitted to the arbitration of the Earl of Godolphin, then Lord High Treasurer of England; and that the union should be rendered complete and final upon the award which he should pronounce. On this foundation, the act, 6th Anne, ch. 17, was passed; enacting that a sum of 1,200,0001, without interest should be advanced by the United Company to government, which, being added to the former advance of 2,000,000l. at 8 per cent. interest, constituted a loan of 3,200,0007. yielding interest at the rate of 5 per cent. upon the whole; that to raise this sum of 1,200,000l. the Company should be empowered to borrow to the extent of 1,500,000l. on their common seal, or to call in moneys to that extent from the Proprietors; that this sum of 1,200,000l. should be added to their capital stock; that instead of terminating on three years' notice after the 29th of September, 1711, their privileges should be continued till three years' notice after the 25th of March, 1726, and till repayment of their capital: that the stock of the separate adventures of the General Society, amounting to 7,2001., which had never been incorporated into the joint-stock of the English Company, might be paid off, on three years' notice after the 29th of September, 1711, and merged in the joint-stock of the United Company; and that the award of the Earl of Godolphin, settling the terms of the 1708. CHAP. 5. BOOK I. Union, should be binding and conclusive on both parties.1 1708. The award of Godolphin was dated and published on the 29th of September, 1708. It referred solely to the winding up of the concerns of the two Companies; and the blending of their separate properties into one stock, on terms equitable to both. As the assets or effects of the London Company in India fell short of the debts of that concern, they were required to pay by instalments to the United Company the sum of 96,615l. 4s. 9d.: and as the effects of the English Company in India exceeded their debts, they were directed to receive from the United Company the sum of 66,005l. 4s. 2d.; a debt due by Sir Edward Littleton in Bengal, of 80,437 rupees and 8 anas, remaining to be discharged by the English Company on their own account. On these terms the whole of the property and debts of both Companies abroad became the property and debts of the United Company. With regard to the debts of both Companies in Britain, it was in general ordained that they should all be discharged before the 1st of March, 1709; and as those of the London Company amounted to the sum of 399,7951. 9s. ld. they were empowered to call upon their Proprietors, by three several instalments, for the means of liquidation.2 As the intercourse of the English nation with the people of India was now destined to become, by a 'Bruce, iii. 635 to 639; Stat. 6. A. c. 17. 2 Ib. 667 to 679. Macpherson, iii. 1, 2. СНАР. 5. rapid progress, both very intimate, and very exten- BOOK I. sive, a full account of the character and circumstances of that people is required for the understanding of the subsequent proceedings and events. The population of those great countries consisted chiefly of two Races: one, who may here be called the Hindu; another, the Mahomedan Race. The first were the aboriginal inhabitants of the country.' The latter were subsequent invaders; and insignificant, in point of number, compared with the first. The next two Books will be devoted to the purpose of laying before the reader all that appears to be useful in what is known concerning both these classes of the Indian people. To those who delight in tracing the phenomena of human nature; and to those who desire to know completely the foundation upon which the actions of the British people in India have been laid, this will not appear the least interesting department of the work. 1 This, as far as probabilities authorize an inference, is an error; the aborigines of India are apparently represented by the various barbarous tribes still inhabiting the mountains and forests, and following rude religious practices, that are no parts of the primitive Hindu system.-W. 1708. BOOK II. OF THE HINDUS. СНАР. 1. CHAPTER I. Chronology and Ancient History of the Hindus. BOOK II. RUDE nations seem to derive a peculiar gratification from pretensions to a remote antiquity.' As a boastful and turgid vanity distinguishes remarkably the oriental nations, they have in most instances carried their claims extravagantly high. We are informed, in a fragment of Chaldaic history, that there were written accounts, preserved at Babylon, 1 Mr. Gibbon remarks (Hist. Decl. and Fall of the Roman Empire, i. p. 350), that the wild Irishman, as well as the wild Tartar, can point out the individual son of Japhet from whose loins his ancestors were lineally descended. According to Dr. Keating (History of Ireland, 13), the giant Partholanus, who was the son of Seara, the son of Esra, the son of Sru, the son of Framant, the son of Fathacian, the son of Magog, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah, landed on the coast of Munster, the 14th day of May, in the year of the world 1978. The legends of England are not less instructive. A fourth or sixth son of Japhet, named Samothes, having first colonized Gaul, passed over into this island, which was thence named Samothia, about 200 years after the flood; but the Samothians being some ages afterwards subdued by Albion, a giant son of Neptune, he called the island after his own name, and ruled it forty-four years. See the story, with some judicious reflections, in Milton's History of England (Prose Works of Milton, iv. 3. Ed. 1806). "The Athenians boasted that they were as ancient as the sun. The Arcadians pretended they were older than the moon. The Lacedemonians called themselves the sons of the earth, &c., such, in general, was the madness of the ancients on this subject! They loved to lose themselves in an abyss of ages which seemed to approach eternity." Goguet, Origin of Laws, v. i. b. 1, ch. 1, art. 5. See the authorities there quoted. |