It was certainly high time that the Company’s affairs were taken in hand. Our present inquiry is concerned only with its merchant shipping, so we may confine ourselves strictly thereto. Had it not been for the wonderfully popular taste which the United Kingdom had now shown for tea, the Company’s ships would have been compelled to cease trading with the East. When, in 1773, the Company’s charter was once more renewed, a grant was made of a monopoly also to China. From about the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the Company had become more of a military than a trading concern, yet the latter was anything but insignificant. Enormous tracts of land had been obtained in India. The governments of the native princes were corrupt, and the East India Company was strong. The British Government was some thousands of miles across the sea, so gradually but surely, without much interference, the Company had obtained a strong grip on the natives. From that followed extortion, and when the Company’s servants returned home they came with fortunes, even though the Company itself was doing badly.
In the year 1772 the East India Company were employing fifty-five ships abroad, aggregating 39,836 tons. At home they owned, and there were being built for its service thirty ships of an aggregate of 22,000 tons. In 1784 the number of its ships at home and abroad was sixty-six. The chief object of the inquiry into the Company’s trade with the East by the Committee just alluded to was apparently to see if the ships could be built and run more cheaply than under the present method of chartering. It was seen from the evidence of Sir Richard Hotham that the existing method of freighting the Company’s ships could be improved upon to effect greater economy, for whereas the Company were paying in the year 1772 as much as £32 a ton for the carriage of fine goods, this expert witness expressed himself as willing to bring goods from any part of the East at £21 a ton.
The result of this inquiry was that important changes had to be made. The Company began to put its shipping business into proper condition. The Company decided to build for its own use a number of bigger ships than they had been wont to use, and thus those wonderful East Indiamen, for which the eighteenth century will ever be famous, came into being. They were of 1200 to 1400 nominal tons, though their real measurement was greater than this. Such ships began to be built about the year 1781, though in earlier days, as the reader is aware, the ships had recently averaged between 400 and 500 tons, not exceeding the latter figure. The new type, of course, did not entirely drive the smaller ones straight off the sea, but the two classes existed side by side. We alluded just now to the terrible national evil of smuggling. This vice had reached amazing limits during the eighteenth century, and the country was in such a state of alarm, and honest traders complained so bitterly of the disastrous effects on their prosperity, that in the year 1745 a beginning was made of an inquiry by a Parliamentary Committee into the causes of smuggling and the most effectual methods to stop it. We have seen that tea, because of its recent popularity, was especially an article beloved by these smugglers. We need not enter further into this inquiry, but evidence showed that one of the best means of ending this illicit trade would be to reduce the duties, thus not making it worth while for the illicit trader to carry on his work. Now when Pitt did reduce the duties on various Indian productions, but especially on tea, it was found that a complete change was made in the demand for this commodity. Many thousand more pounds’ weight were now required, the sales were trebled, and thus there was a much greater shipping business. The export trade to China now began to be most important also, and the Company was prospering.