William Bentinck was governor-general and had undoubtedly his best wishes, A.D. 1893. though it did not receive his actual co-operation, may not improperly be regarded as one of the important events connected with his administration.

of Shah

When Shah Shujah started from Loodiana in January, 1833, he could only Proceedings muster a few hundred followers; on his arrival at Shikarpoor they amounted Shujali. to 30,000. The Ameers of Scinde gave him a most friendly reception, and continued for a time to furnish him with abundant supplies; but when he delayed his departure, and instead of being satisfied, continued daily to increase his demands, they became completely alienated, and determined to rid themselves of the burden at all hazards. They accordingly collected their forces. Shah Shujah on his part was not disinclined to an appeal to arms, and in January, 1834, a pitched battle was fought near Roree. Shah Shujah proved victorious, and the Ameers having purchased his departure by consenting to pay him an additional subsidy, and assist him with an auxiliary force, he commenced his advance on Kandahar. He encountered little resistance, and was in hopes of an easy capture, when the approach of Dost Mahomed from Cabool, at the head of a powerful force, completely changed the aspect of affairs. Shah Shujah retired to Abbasabad, where he was brought to bay, and ventured to risk a battle. Owing partly to the treachery, and partly to the cowardice His ultimate of his followers, he was signally discomfited, and fled westward with a slender escort to the fort of Laush, the chief of which gave him an asylum. After a short delay he marched north to Furrah, expecting reinforcements from Herat, but being disappointed, and threatened by a party of horse under Rehim Khan, he fled across the desert of Seistan, and after great privations, reached Kelat. His pursuer had followed close upon his track, but the chief of Kelat having taken the ex-king under his protection, refused to surrender him. On this a characteristic bargain was struck, the chief of Kelat agreeing to withdraw his protection, and Rehim Khan agreeing to desist from pursuit. Shah Shujah, thus obliged once more to shift for himself, repaired to Hyderabad, where the Ameers treated him with more kindness than might have been anticipated after their late quarrel. From Hyderabad he proceeded north-east across the desert of Jessulmeer, and again fixed his residence at Loodiana. His second expedition furnishes a tale of disgrace and disaster which must be reserved for future narration.

discomfiture.

ing expiry

of the

charter.

CHAPTER VIII.

Approaching expiry of the Company's charter-Views of ministers and of the Company-Bill for renewing the charter introduced-The discussions produced by it-The act passed-Its leading provisions-Close of Lord William Bentinck's administration.

URING the greater part of Lord William Bentinck's administration, India and its affairs engrossed a far larger share of the attention of the British public and legislature than had usually been allotted to them. The Company's existing charter was to expire in 1834. Ought it to be renewed at all, and if renewed, A.D. 1829. under what conditions? These were questions which it had become absolutely necessary to answer, and in which, it was well understood, the manuApproach facturing and commercial interests of the country were deeply involved. The monopoly of trade to India had been advantageously abolished-why should Company's that of the trade to China be retained? As early as 1829 the leading towns of the United Kingdom had begun to agitate the subject, and to load the tables of both Houses of Parliament with petitions against the renewal of the charter, and in February, 1830, select committees were appointed on the recommendation of ministers themselves, Lord Ellenborough making the motion in the Parliamen- lords, and Sir Robert Peel in the commons. Both movers carefully abstained mittees from giving any indication of the views entertained by the cabinet, and the committees were simply appointed "to inquire into the present state of the affairs of the East India Company, and into the trade between Great Britain and China, and to report their observations thereupon to the house.". The death of George IV., the dissolution of parliament, and the formation of a new ministry pledged to parliamentary reform, withdrew attention for a time from the concerns of India. The committees, however, re-appointed from session to session, had not been idle, and a vast body of evidence oral and written had been accumulated.

tary com

appointed.

Arguments

against the

The expediency of throwing open the trade to China could scarcely admit Company's of serious discussion. It was open to all the other trading nations of the world, monopoly. and were the British alone to be excluded from it, in order that all the profit

which it yielded might be monopolized by a company? As usual, however, both parties pushed their views to an extreme, the free traders maintaining that the Company had no interest to oppose the opening of the trade because it yielded them no profit, and the Company, on the other hand, maintaining that the profit which it yielded was so large and so necessary to meet the payment of their dividends, that they would be ruined if deprived of it. After a great

against the

monopoly.

mass of conflicting evidence had been given on the subject, the result acquiesced A.D. 1829. in by the most competent judges was, that during the last fifteen years of the Company's monopoly of the China trade, they had realized from it an aggregate Arguments profit of £15,414,000, or rather more than a million sterling annually. But Company's when this fact was admitted, it carried little weight with it, because it was alleged that the profit was obtained by enhancing the price, and was, in fact, a tax levied upon the whole consumers of tea for the benefit of a particular corporation. Even admitting that the profit was legitimately gained by fair trade without taxing the consumers, the question still returned, Why should this profit go entirely into the pockets of one class of individuals, to the exclusion of all the other merchants of the kingdom? Behind this question there was still another. The Company made a million annually by the China trade. Was this the maximum profit that could be realized? The extinction of monopoly naturally extended commerce, and there was therefore every reason to expect, that if the trade were thrown open, it would rapidly extend, so as at once to add greatly to the amount of aggregate profit realized by individuals, and of revenue drawn by the public. To these views no solid objection could be stated.

as to the

government

After the question of monopoly was virtually decided, and the Company, Question if continuing to trade at all, could not expect to occupy any vantage ground, future the next point was to settle the future government of India. Was the old of India. machinery to be thrown aside as worn out and useless, or might it not be possible by means of alterations and repairs to render it more efficient than ever? The moment the monopoly of the Company was extinguished, its trade, exposed to general competition, ceased to be of any value. Nothing, therefore, could be lost by agreeing to abandon it. Acting on this view ministers proposed that the Company should entirely sink their commercial, and in future act only in a political character, their governing powers and relations to the Board of Control remaining, with slight modifications, the same as before. The directors, when this proposal was submitted to them, expressed great doubts of being able to carry on the government, when divested of their commercial character, but they were willing, if certain difficulties which they pointed out could be obviated, to recommend to the proprietors to close with the proposal. One important point, however, still remained to be explained. Whatever might be the view taken as to the territorial rights of the Company, they were certainly possessed of a large amount of capital, of which it never could be proposed to deprive them, and it was therefore necessary to ascertain how this capital was in future to be secured, and from what source the dividends payable on it were to be derived.

On this subject a serious difference of opinion arose. The proposal of ministers was, that the whole of the Company's commercial assets should, so far as possible, be converted into money, and that with the sum thus obtained a portion of the Indian debt, bearing interest equal in amount to £630,000,

A.D. 1829.

between

and the

for

now annually payable in dividends, should be discharged. In future the dividends would be regarded as an annuity payable to the proprietors of India Negotiations stock, and charged upon the territorial revenue of India. After a certain fixed government term it would be in the option of parliament to redeem this annuity, by paying Company. every £5, 58. of annuity, £100 of capital. The directors objected that these assets, if converted into cash, would suffice to purchase an investment in consols equal to the amount of their dividends, and that they were, therefore, entitled in fairness to demand that the assets should either be employed in making such an investment for the behoof of the proprietors, or at least so employed as to provide an effectual guarantee, both for the regular half-yearly payment of the dividends, and in the event of redemption, for the payment of such an amount of principal as would produce the dividends by investing it in the funds. According to the Company the value of their stock, including assets of every kind, amounted on the 1st of May, 1829, to £21,103,000, and they had also a random claim of £5,000,000 as the value of fixed property in India. This last claim, however, was very problematical, and even in making up the stock to twenty-one millions, one item of £4,632,000, as due from territory, was added, and another of £3,796,000, as chargeable to territory, omitted. The propriety both of the addition and the omission was strongly questioned, and if, as was not improbable, the one should fall to be deducted from the assets, and the other added to the debit of the Company, the effect would be to cut off nearly eight millions and a half from the aggregate capital, reducing its value at one stroke from £21,103,000 to £12,675,000. Nor was this all. Several of the items composing this lower value were subject to dispute, and it was therefore not impossible that in making a final adjustment, whether by arbitration or legal proceedings, other important deductions might be made. These considerations rendered a compromise desirable, and the original proposal of ministers was ultimately accepted, with this important addition, that two millions sterling of the commercial assets should be invested in the funds, and there accumulated to form a collateral security for the capital of the Company and its future redemption.

Different questions agitated.

The next point to be considered was the term before which the power of redemption should not be exercised, and to which the government of India should be continued to the Company. Ministers were willing that the compulsory redemption should not be competent within forty years, but they refused to accede to the proposal of the directors, that the government should be continued to the Company till the annuity should be actually redeemed; ultimately, however, they conceded so far as to consent that the government should be continued to the Company for twenty years, and that at the end of this or any subsequent period they should not be deprived of it without a three years' notice, and the option of demanding payment of the capital, and employing the whole or any part of it in resuming their trade, should they see fit to

between

and the

do so. Among the various other points discussed, the only one requiring parti- A.D. 1833. cular notice at present, was the degree of power to be possessed respectively by the Board of Control and the Company. Ministers proposed that the absolute Negotiations power which the Company now possessed of recalling the governors of the government presidencies and the commander-in-chief should be restricted, by giving the company. board a veto on the recall. This proposal was strenuously objected to by the directors, who maintained that the natural tendency of the new arrangements was to diminish their influence, and that therefore they were entitled to expect, that if any change were to be made in the relative positions of the board and the Company, it would be by curtailing the overgrown authority of the former, and strengthening the impaired powers of the latter. Following out this view, they referred to the manner in which the directors had been coerced by the issue of the writ of mandamus, in regard to the claims of creditors in the Nizam's dominions, and threatened with the issue of the same writ in regard to similar claims in Oude. Such proceedings might be repeated, and as their obvious effect was to weaken the hands of government, and even bring it into contempt, it seemed absolutely necessary either to give a right of appeal in the event of differences between the court and the board, or at all events to provide for their publicity by bringing them directly under the notice of parliament. Ministers gave way so far as to desist from pressing for a veto on the powers of recall already enjoyed by the court, but they peremptorily refused to give a right of repeal, and held that publicity was already sufficiently secured, by the right which the directors possessed, in common with all the other subjects of the realm, of approaching parliament by petition.

adopted by

On the 25th of March, 1833, the correspondence between the directors and Resolutions the Board of Control as representing the ministry was submitted to the court parliament. of proprietors, and on the 15th day of April, to which day the meeting had been adjourned, Sir John Malcolm moved a series of resolutions, embodying in substance the leading proposals above made by the directors, and signifying the assent of the Company "to conduct the government of India, at the sacrifices demanded, provided they were furnished with powers sufficient for the effective discharge of so important a duty, and their pecuniary rights and claims were adjusted upon the principle of fair and liberal compromise." The resolutions gave rise to a debate which was spun out to seven days, and were finally carried by ballot by a majority of 477 to 52. As yet, however, all that had been done was only preliminary to the real battle which was to be fought in parliament. On the 13th of June, 1833, the subject was introduced to the House of Commons by Mr. Charles Grant (afterwards Lord Glenelg), the president of the Board of Control, who concluded a long explanatory speech by moving the three following resolutions:-"1. That it is expedient that all his majesty's subjects shall be at liberty to repair to the ports of the empire of China, and to trade in tea and in all other productions of the said empire, subject

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