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ART. IX.-(1.) Life in Ancient India. By Mrs. SPEIR. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1856.

(2.) Modern India. By GEORGE CAMPBELL, Esq., Civil Service. London: J. Murray. 1852.

(3.) Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Napier. London: Murray. 1857.

(4.) Sir E. PERRY's Bird's-eye View of India.

(5.) Speeches of Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Mr. DISRAELI, Mr. MANGLES, Mr. VERNON SMITH, and Viscount PALMERSTON, on the Debate on India, on Monday, the 27th of July.

(6.) Speeches of Sir DE LACY EVANS and Viscount PALMERSTON, on Tuesday, the 11th of August, on the Indian Crisis, and the Military Measures necessary.

(7.) Sketch of the Political History of India from the introduction of Mr. Pitt's Bill, 1784 to 1811. By JOHN MALCOLM, LieutenantColonel in the Madras Army, Resident at Mysore, and Envoy to the Court of Persia. London: Miller. 1811.

(8.) The English in Western India. By the Rev. J. ANDERSON, A.M. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1856.

(9.) The Mutiny of the Bengal Army, by one who has served under Sir C. Napier. London: Bosworth and Harrison. 1857.

(10.) The Mutiny of the Bengal Army. London: J. Chapman. 1857. (11.) Allen's Indian Mail, July, August, and September.

(12.) Remarks on the Native Troops of the Indian Army. By Major JOHN JACOB. London. 1854.

(13.) History of the East India Company. By J. W. KAYE. London. 1854.

(14.) Les Anglais et l'Inde, par E. de VALBEZEN. Paris: Levy. 1857.

(15.) The Homeward Mail, August 31.

EVERYTHING connected with India has as much interest for us in England as events and occurrences taking place in Scotland, Ireland, or the Isle of Man. These fertile and favoured regions of the torrid zone, in which the gigantic palm, the vivid green banana, and the stately mango, dark and dense in its foliage, and studded with golden fruit, strike the eyes of the European traveller, have, for more than two centuries and a half, been the scenes of our enterprise and adventure; of our first feeble efforts to obtain a footing and a factory; of our subsequent acquisitions, by patient toil and necessary conquest, till at length the company of merchants trading to the East have found themselves possessed of a great empire, with territories and populations five times as numerous as those of France, three times as numerous as those of Russia, and wonderfully transcending the population and territory of the United Kingdom. That a small island in the Atlantic, twelve or fourteen thousand miles distant from Hin

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dostan, should, by a company of merchants, have conquered and held the vast continent of India, is a fact which can never be stated without exciting wonder and admiration.

The first charters granted to our merchants trading to the East gave them the privilege of exclusive commerce, and, as a necessary incident, the right to protect their property. But after a time, the enterprise and energy of agents, the hostile and encroaching spirit of other nations of Europe, and, above all, the weakness and perfidy of the native Princes of Asia, led our factors and merchants on, from step to step, till they found themselves called upon to act the part of Sovereigns over considerable territories and extended kingdoms. The means by which India became subject to England were those, above all others, best calculated to effect such an object. A military force, or a naval armament, could not have approached the shores of India without exciting apprehension and encountering resistance; but to the peaceful trader and enterprising merchant and factor, no impediment was offered on the contrary, he was fostered and encouraged; and when the earlier settlers exhibited in defence of their properties and persons as much military as commercial ability, they became objects rather of admiration than of jealousy. The native Princes courted their alliance, and invoked their aid against each other. To have refused such aid would have been difficult, more especially when reciprocal advantages were offered. When additional immunities and privileges were presented calculated to benefit and increase trade, to promote the security and improve the prosperity of the factory, where is the British merchant who would have declined to enter into political engagements and connexions so lucrative and advantageous? In this wise it insensibly was that the substance, though not the form of the Indian Government, was altered. The East India Company became involved beyond the power of retreating in all the complicated relations of a political State. They advanced by easy steps to territorial power and aggrandizement under the influence of causes not possible to control, and irresistible in their force. Sir John Malcolm, with his wonted sagacity and shrewdness, says, that from the day on which the Company's troops marched one mile from their factories, the increase of their territories and their armies became a principle of self-preservation; and at the end of every one of those numerous contests in which they were involved by the jealousy, avarice, or ambition of their neighbours, or the rapacity and ambition of their own servants, they were forced to adopt measures for improving their strength, which soon appeared to be the only mode by which they could avert the occurrence of similar danger. It should also be remembered

that the Company's earlier servants were few in number; they acted in a hemisphere, and under circumstances, too distant to admit of check or control; and the consequence was, they lulled the jealousy of neighbouring native Princes by the smallness of their numbers, while they did not offend the sovereignty of the parent State.

The rise of the East India Company was coincident with the fall of the imperial House of Timour. It cannot be a matter of surprise that, at such a period, the natives rejoiced at the introduction of a Government which tolerated their religion, and secured their property-a Government, in fine, which afforded them perfect security and durable tranquillity. To native Princes, exhausted with wars and worn out with disguises, duplicities, treacheries, and frauds, the permanency of a strong foreign usurpation was a blessing. All men, whether civilized or savage, have a respect for strength, and an admiration for justice; and it was not unnatural that the native, whether of high or of low degree, should contemplate a dominion based on good faith and justice as superior to his own. It was thus almost involuntarily that the Princes and chiefs allowed the East India Company to attain a strength which they could not shake. When John Company had fully established himself, all the native efforts for his destruction only tended to confirm and enlarge his power; and even in the alternations of his fortune he uniformly rose higher from reverses. For nearly one hundred years before the first establishment of the East India Company, the merchants of England made early efforts to share with the Portuguese in the trade which was carried on by the newly-discovered channel between Europe and India. But more than a century elapsed before they were successful. The wealthy merchants of London petitioned Queen Elizabeth to grant them encouragement and exclusive privileges for the purpose of carrying on the trade with India. The Queen, alive to every project which promised to increase the wealth and greatness of England, sent an embassy to the Emperor of Delhi, (whose long extinct power it is fruitlessly sought again to revive,) to solicit him to extend his power and protection to British subjects. But almost simultaneously with the embassy, her Majesty granted a charter on the 31st December, 1600, which erected the merchants who petitioned her into a body, or corporation, under the title of Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies. By this charter they were vested with the power of purchasing lands without any limitation; and they were further endowed for fifteen years with the privilege of an exclusive trade. The original capital was 72,000l., divided into 50l. shares.

Jealousy of Portuguese.

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The first fleets which the Company sent to India were successful. The third, which was commanded by Captain Keeling, returned to England in 1610, after a long and prosperous voyage, with his ships richly laden, and without the loss of a single man. Destitute of settlements and forts, the earlier adventurers had neither accommodation nor security. They were consequently subjected to every insult or injury which the commercial hatred of European rivals could stimulate. In the year 1609, the Company obtained a second charter by which the right of exclusive trade was made perpetual. Though, however, the Company had received the permission of the Emperor of Delhi to form settlements and establish factories, they were prevented from enjoying these advantages by the intrigues of the Portuguese. They were therefore obliged to have recourse to force to obtain justice from their European rivals, who claimed on the ground of prior possession an exclusive right to the commerce of the Indian seas. The vessels of the Company were armed to oppose this pretension, and, in 1612, a fleet of them, under Captain Best, defeated the enemy in two actions. Victories like these not only raised the reputation of the English, but enabled the Company to establish a factory at Surat under propitious circumstances. The Company had solicited the Crown to send an embassy to the Emperor Jehaungier to settle their commerce on a more secure basis. King James complied with their request, and, in 1614, Sir Thomas Roe proceeded to the Imperial Court, which was then residing at Ajmere. Though Roe was received with all honour by Jehaungier, yet the intrigues of the Portuguese missionaries prevented that success which had been expected. The feeble effort of the Portuguese to undermine English power only stimulated the Company to more active measures. The expense

of military equipments now somewhat deranged the Company's finances, and their embarrassments were further increased by the endeavours which they made to share with the Dutch in the trade of the Spice Islands. At first the Company conciliated the Malay princes, and obtained the cession of some valuable settlements. These successes excited the sordidness of the Dutch to the perpetration of a deed which has indelibly fixed the stain of cruelty on that country. From the period of the massacre of Amboyna in 1622, the English East India Company may be said to have abandoned the commerce of the Eastern islands to their rivals of Holland. But the English Company found a new field for enterprise in the formation of the settlement of Bengal-now the seat of mutiny-but which for 220 years has been and will, we hope, still continue a principal source of the prosperity of England.

During the Protectorate of Cromwell, that great general, administrator, and statesman threw the trade of India open to the independent enterprise of the merchants of London. The result was that our merchants afforded the Indian commodities so cheap as to supply most parts of Europe, and even Amsterdam itself. A new charter was granted to the Company by Charles II., in April, 1661. That monarch obtained possession, in 1663, of the island of Bombay as part of the marriage portion of his bride, the Infanta of Portugal; but finding the expense of supporting the possession greater than its revenue, he ceded it to the East India Company in the twentieth year of his reign. The privileges of the Company were extended by the Act of the 35 Charles II., passed fifteen years afterwards. They were still more indebted to James II. The influence of the Duke of York had been the chief support of the Company during his brother's life; and when James ascended the throne, he granted the Indian merchants increased immunities and a still larger portion of the Royal power. He authorized them to build fortresses, to raise troops, to hold courts martial, and to coin money. It must be allowed that the Company abused this almost unlimited authority, and too frequently forgot humanity, justice, and even policy, in the pursuit of gain. Private resentments and selfish views were not seldom the rules of their conduct; and the secrecy with which they veiled their purposes was made ancillary to many frauds. Though they had doubled their capital in 1682, they had not taken in more than one half of the sum at first subscribed. At the moment they were making extravagant dividends to the proprietors of stock, they had incurred a debt of two millions, and, instead of answering legal demands, had declared they would pay no more till a certain date, though they alleged their affairs were in the most flourishing condition. Deceptions at home were supported by iniquities abroad, and Sir John Child, one of the most notorious of their Governors, is represented to have seized thirteen large ships at Surat, the property of merchants, and to have retired with this shameful spoil to Bombay.t

The Company obtained a new charter from Queen Mary, in 1694. In the following year several flagrant abuses in their affairs were detected by Parliament. The Duke of Leeds, the most obnoxious offender, was impeached for receiving 5000l.; but the King put a sudden end to the session, and by that act quashed the impeachment and checked inquiry.‡

* White's Account of the Indian Trade.

+ Ibid. Hamilton's Hindostan, vol. 1, and Harris.
+ Commons Journal, April, 1695.

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