THE RIGHTS AND PRETENSIONS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.
It is now become a matter of the most solemn importance, that the public attention should be called to a clear and deliberate survey of THE RIGHTS and PRETENSIONS of the East India Company; and that the judgment of Parliament should be directed to, and its sense declared upon, the subject of those pretensions, which have generated A NEW CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION, and are now carried to an height to affect the supreme Sovereignty of the State. To discuss those Rights and Pretensions at large, would demand a far more extended space than the present occasion can supply; but it would be altogether unnecessary to enter into a more enlarged discussion; because, in order to obtain the end here proposed, of drawing and fixing the attention of Parliament and the Public upon the subject, little more is required, than to bring those several Rights and Pretensions into one compressed and distinct point of view; and to leave it to the legislative wisdom to determine finally upon their validity.
The rights of the East India Company, are usually distinguished into their _temporary_ rights, and their _perpetual_ or _permanent_ rights.
I. The temporary rights of the Company are:
1. _A right to the exclusive trade with all the countries lying eastward from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan._ This right is _a lease_ of all the _public right_ to the trade of those parts of the world; which lease has been renewed to the Company, from time to time, in consideration of a varying premium to be paid by them to the Public.
2. _A right to administer the government and revenue of all the territories in India acquired by them during their term in the exclusive trade._ This is a right delegated from the Crown, with the assent of Parliament; and which can be possessed by the Company no longer, than the authority from which it emanates has, or shall prescribe.
Upon the expiration of these temporary rights, which determine, as the law at present stands, in the ensuing year, 1814, the East India Company will remain in possession of whatever _permanent_ rights shall be found to pertain to them.
II. The _perpetual_, or more properly, the _permanent_ rights of the Company, must be considered under two distinct heads, viz. _admitted_ and _alleged_.