CHAPTER V.

Concluding Reflexions.

THE history of the East-India Company, as faintly sketched in the foregoing pages, exhibits them under three different aspects. The first is that of a body purely or principally commercial, in which character they originally appeared, and which they retained for a century and a half. Circumstances then invested them with political and imperial functions; in which capacity they may be considered, either with respect to their foreign transactions, those wars and negotiations that have rendered Great Britain the arbitress of the Indian world, or as domestic politicians, the sovereigns and legislators of an extensive and populous empire.

It was observed, in the early part of this work, that, but for the charter granted by Queen Elizabeth to the Company, the direct trade between England and India must probably have perished at its birth. A similar remark apparently applies to every stage in the history of the purely commercial existence of the Company. The privilege of an exclusive trade still remained ne

cessary; for the traders had still the same difficulties to encounter; the unsafe favour and uncertain counsels of Indian patrons; the malice and strength of European rivals; the vacillating policy of the British government at home.

The history of the Company, subsequently to their acquisition of a military and territorial character, suggests reflexions of still greater interest and importance. In the preceding pages, particular care has been taken to furnish a circumstantial description of the steps by which this mighty revolution in the situation of the body was effected and matured; and the conclusion which results from the narrative may be summed up in these two leading positions; that the heavy charges frequently urged against the early political transactions of the Company or their servants proceed on much exaggeration or even fiction ; and that, where the blame really attaches, yet many important circumstances may be found of fair palliation or apology.

With regard to the servants of the Company, as distinct from the Company at home, some very atrocious accusations have, it is trusted, met with a complete answer in the progress of the work. Such are the imputations of the murder of two nabobs in succession; the still blacker charge of the murder of three millions of persons, in 1769, by an artificial famine; as well as various other calumnies of a lighter or deeper shade, which, without any specific mention of them, have been

virtually refuted by a plain recital of facts. A mass of minor mistatements is, in the same manner, tacitly, but, it is hoped, effectually, obviated. It has been asserted, for example, by a celebrated author, that, about the time of the restoration of Madras to the Company, at the peace of Aix-laChapelle, "the spirit of war and conquest seems "to have taken possession of their servants in "India, and never since to have left them.' How far this representation is true, the present author has attempted fairly and candidly to ascertain in his third chapter; that it is at least not true without exception, may surely appear from the account of the last administration of Lord Clive, given in the second.

Those persons who have attributed to the ser vants of the Company the offences alluded to, have sometimes fixed on the Company themselves

* Wealth of Nations, Book V. ch. 1. It may be added, that the whole account, short as it is, given by Dr. Smith of the transactions in India about that time is inaccurate. He says, "During the French war which began in 1741, the ambition

of M. Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry, in"volved them (the English India Company) in the wars of the "Carnatic, and in the politics of the Indian princes. After "many signal successes, and equally signal losses, they at last "lost Madras, &c." The fact is, that it was not till after the French war which began in 1741, that the English were involved in the wars of the Carnatic and the politics of the Indian princes; and that, during that French war, they had no signal success, unless the repulse of the French from Cuddalore can be considered as such. See Orme's History.

the guilt of encouragement or connivance; in which case, the acquittal of the parties charged as principals must necessarily clear the supposed accessaries. But there are other instances in which the Company were clear, though their servants were guilty. There were times, undoubtedly, when the servants were possessed with a spirit of war and conquest; while the disposition of the Company at home has been uniformly pacific, excepting for one short period, which does not fall within the scope of the present history.

So far, on the other hand, as the acts of the Company or their servants at the outset of their territorial career really deserve censure, the foregoing pages at least exhibit some strong grounds of mitigation. The novelty of their situation was such as might naturally be expected both to seduce men from their good intentions, and to perplex the judgments even of those whose intentions might be the best. Much more, when this new situation was attained under circumstances peculiarly calculated to inflame and mislead their minds; amidst war and tumult, the agitations of political contest, the exasperation of suffering, and the heating influence of success.

The change of situation which the Company underwent at the time in question was not indeed so essentially and radically marked as it may seem to a superficial observer. Even before that period, they had in some measure a political character, although their predominant functions were com

mercial. Districts of a slight extent, but well peo pled, were attached to their principal settlements; and over these they exercised jurisdiction as sovereigns. They made laws, dispensed justice, levied taxes, maintained troops, and negotiated with the country powers. But this was, after all, a dominion in miniature; and a dominion, subordinate and subsidiary to a trade. A petty state, suddenly expanding to ten times its former dimensions, is placed in a predicament sufficiently new and strange; much more when, from being a mere appendage to another hemisphere, a satellite to a distant world, it becomes a primary body in a new system, and revolves attracting and attracted. The change of circumstances, therefore, which the Company experienced by the accession of political and territorial power, though it might be nothing in kind, was immense in degree.

In framing alliances with the native princes, the Company and their servants did not at that time perceive, what a wider acquaintance with political science might have taught them, and what the event has abundantly proved, that, when an unequal union is formed between two nations, the inequality must, at length, inevitably discover itself, and must increase. The distrust, jealousy, impatience of dictation, and yet indolent reliance on support, which such a connexion tends to breed on the weaker side; the spirit of officious protection and authoritative interference, which it naturally generates on the stronger, cannot fail, sooner