CHAPTER II.

General View of the Company's Governments in the beginning and middle of the Seventeenth Century-Summary of the Political State of India at the same Time.

THE field of exertion on which Mr. Hastings was about to enter differed in all respects so essentially from that which it has since become, that, in order to make the narrative of his after-life intelligible, it is necessary that I should preface what I am going to say with a brief account of it.

Early in the eighteenth century the rival East India Companies, which had for several years competed and wrangled for exclusive privileges, brought their disputes to an end, and under the title of the United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies, were by Act of Parliament erected into a species of corporation. Regulating their affairs at home by means of courts of proprietors and directors, which again were presided over by chairmen, and carried on the details of business in committees, the company in question maintained abroad three principal settlements, one of which was established at Bombay, another at Madras, and the third at Calcutta, or Fort William, on the Hoogley.

These, which were called presidencies, were all

independent one of the other; each exercised supreme jurisdiction within its own limits, each was responsible only to the home authorities, and each consisted of a president or governor, and a council, appointed by commission from the company, and by the company liable to be recalled. Moreover, the council was not restricted as to numbers, which, on the contrary, varied according to the views of the directors at the moment, so that it consisted sometimes of nine, sometimes of twelve members, according to the presumed importance or extent of the business to be transacted. In like manner the council was made up of the superior servants of the company, not belonging to the military class, who were promoted according to the rule of seniority, except in special cases where directions from home interfered. Finally, in the president and council conjointly all power was vested, insomuch that no question could be determined, nor any regulation passed, except by a majority of votes.

The extent of territory over which these presidencies respectively exercised control was in every instance narrow. At Calcutta the company had acquired by purchase a domain which encircled their capital in a radius of perhaps seven English miles. Madras caused her will to be respected as far as the mount of St. Thomé; while Bombay gave the law to the island of Salsette and no

more.

Other settlements there doubtless were, which in various parts of India looked to one or other of the presidencies as to their head; but, with the exception of Fort St. David, itself a minor species of capital, and Bantam, originally a presidency, none of them either obtained or deserved titles more lofty than those of factories. Such were those of Cossimbazar near Moorshedabad, Masulapatam, on one of the mouths of the Kishna, and Surat, in the bay of Cambay; and such were many others, which in this place it is not necessary to particularise.

The single purpose for which these establishments were erected being the prosecution of commercial devices, and the management of the parties engaged in them, it would be idle to try their forms of government by any such test as a comparison between them and the colossal machinery by which the affairs of British India are now kept in order. Though bound by solemn engagement to act according to the spirit of such instructions as might be transmitted to them from home, the British settlers in India were yet, in some sense, dependent on the native princes; that is to say, they held their lands on such tenures as the native princes might have dictated, and in all their trading operations were subject to such regulations as the native princes might impose. Accordingly, the sale of those commodities which they imported from

Europe, they conducted for a while in the simplest and easiest of all ways, namely, by sending them into the interior, in the common hackeries of the country, and exposing them to public auction at such warehouses as in the most convenient of the market towns they might have established. But the confusion which ensued on the breaking up of the Mogul empire rendered this mode of proceeding too insecure, and a rule was in consequence adopted, which hindered any person in the Company's service, or under its jurisdiction, from removing far from the coast without leave obtained from the governor and council of the station to which he belonged. From that time forth, therefore, the care of distributing the goods into the country, and introducing them to the consumers, was left to the native and other independent dealers.

While the import trade was thus managed, a more complicated machinery was required in order to purchase, and collect, and take care of the goods. which constituted the export trade, or freight for England. As the country was not sufficiently advanced in point of wealth and civilization to possess manufacturers and merchants on a large scale- men who were capable of executing extensive orders, and delivering the goods contracted for on a specified day-the Company were obliged to employ their own agents to gather

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together, here and there, in such quantities as presented themselves, the different articles of which the cargoes to Europe were composed. For the reception of these when collected, and their safe keeping till the ships from England should arrive, depôts or stations were needed. Hence the erection, at convenient points, of warehouses, countinghouses, and other apartments, where the business of the Company might be carried on and its agents lodged in other words, hence the establishment of those factories which have already been described as intimately connected with each of the presidencies and dependent on them. This was the first step ;and the second was the providing for the Company's agents who might be stationed there, adequate protection against the attacks of marauders. On the native powers, shaken by continual revolts, no reliance could be placed, so the factories were inclosed by works, rude perhaps, yet adapted to the exigencies of the moment, and garrisoned partly by the Company's civil servants, each of whom was trained to the use of arms, partly by such a body of regular troops as the limited resources of the presidency could afford.

Of the manner in which the affairs of the factories were conducted, the most distinct idea will be formed, provided we confine our regard to that branch of the Company's trade which had for its object the exportation of manufactured goods to