It is not meant to insinuate, that any condition of the kind alluded to is likely to be imposed, in granting the relief so pressingly required by the present exigencies of the Company; but if a necessity for the winding up of their affairs, as an exclusive Company, should arrive, and if their own resources, with the profits they may derive from their commerce as a Corporate Body, should not be adequate to the payment of a dividend of 10½ per cent.; could it reasonably be expected, that Parliament would, in _all future times_, extend its liberality towards the Proprietors of India stock, to the extent of _securing to them_ a continuance of their present dividend?
It is to be feared, that those who may have calculated upon such a result, have taken a false measure of their _prospective situation_; and it is on account of this apprehension, that it appears highly important to call the attention of the Proprietors to the care of their own substantial interest in the dividend; an interest, which to them is, and must be paramount.
It is at all times an object equally interesting and instructive, to trace the origin of laws and institutions, and to follow them in the progress of their operation; but this inquiry becomes more powerfully attractive, when the pursuit is stimulated by an anxiety to defend a supposed right, or to acquire an extension of advantages which are already possessed.
Such an investigation appearing to be a necessary sequel of the subject treated of in a former communication, let us now take a succinct view of those provisions of the Act of 1793, by which the East India Company, upon the last renewal of their Charter for a fixed time, were called upon to relax from the exclusive restrictions of the monopoly which they had so long enjoyed. Taking that Act as the source and origin from whence the present India Question arises, let us briefly follow the subject in its progress, down to the propositions that are now before the Public.
It is necessary to premise, that the Company had, from an early period of their commerce, granted as a favour and indulgence to the Captains and Officers of their ships, permission to fill a regular portion of tonnage with certain prescribed articles, upon their private account, subject to the condition; that those privileged articles should be lodged in the warehouses of the Company, that they should be exposed by them at their sales, and that they should pay from 7 to 5 per cent. to cover the charge of commission and merchandise.