THE BRITISH CONQUEST OF INDIA.

HE first nation of modern times to hold a commercial intercourse with Indiathat famous land of the East, regarding which such gorgeous accounts had come down from antiquity-was the Portuguese. To discover a short route to the celebrated countries where the gold and the diamonds and the rich spices were to be found, was the great object of European ambition in the fifteenth century; and as the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama was the first to solve the problem, by doubling the Cape of Good Hope (previously passed by his countryman Diaz), and sailing into the Indian Ocean in the year 1497, his countrymen, then celebrated among the nations of Europe for their enterprise and nautical skill, were the first to reap the advantages of a connection by sea with the East Indies. Nearly a whole century elapsed, ' during which,' to use the words of Mr Mill in his History of British India, 'the Portuguese, without a rival, enjoyed and abused the advantages of superior knowledge and art amid a feeble and half-civilised people.'

About the end of the sixteenth century, other nations, especially the English and the Dutch, began to compete with the Portuguese in the trade with the East Indies. Passing over various efforts made by English adventurers, supported by government, to establish a regular commerce with India, we come to the memorable attempt made under the auspices of a number of London merchants, who had been constituted into a Company for the purpose by a royal

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I

charter, dated the 31st of December 1600. 'This charter,' says Mr Mill, 'the origin of a power so anomalous and important as that which was afterwards accumulated in the hands of the East India Company, contained nothing which remarkably distinguished it from the other charters of incorporation so commonly in that age bestowed upon trading associations. It constituted the adventurers a body politic and corporate, by the name of "The Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies," and vested them with the usual privileges and powers. According to the principle of the times, the charter was exclusive; prohibiting the rest of the community from trading within the limits assigned to the Company-that is, the space of land and ocean lying beyond the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magellan; but granting to the Company the power, whenever they pleased, of bestowing licenses for that purpose.' The charter was granted at first for a period of fifteen years, with the probability, however, of renewal.

Such was the foundation of the celebrated East India Company, whose power in the world's affairs was long so enormous. The first voyages of the ships belonging to the Company were not to the Indian continent, but to the islands of Java, Sumatra, &c., from which they brought home calicoes, raw silk, indigo, and spices. It was soon found desirable, however, to hold commercial intercourse with Hindustan itself; and accordingly, after some difficulties, leave was obtained from the native authorities, in the years 1611 and 1612, to establish factories or warehouses for the convenience of trade at Surat, Ahmedabad, Cambay, and Gogo, on the west. Thus, when the British first planted their feet on the soil of India, they appeared as nothing more than the humble agents or servants of a company of merchants in a distant island, charged with the task of shipping and unshipping goods, and bound, as they valued their lives and liberties, to behave in a civil and even submissive manner to the natives. From such small beginnings did the empire of the British in India take its rise.

The original East India Company, with its charters at different times disputed and renewed, continued throughout the seventeenth century to carry on a more or less profitable traffic with the East. Its factories were extended to Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Banda Islands, Celebes, Malacca, Siam, and the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel. In 1640, the native authorities gave permission for the building of Fort St George at Madras; and in 1645 a factory was established on the banks of the Hooghly, a branch of the Ganges near its mouth, which formed the foundation of Calcutta. The island of Bombay was also procured as a settlement in 1664–5, after a struggle with its Portuguese possessors. Three years before this, the Company received authority, for the first time, to make war and peace with the native princes; but its affairs were not in a prosperous state; and soon after the Revolution of 1688, the question of the

validity of the old royal charter was started. The consequence followed of the Company not being able to perform its obligations, on account of losses occasioned by wars, infidelity of officers, extravagance, &c.; and parliament, in 1698, granted a charter to a new East India Company, on condition of a loan of £2,000,000 sterling to the state, and which was required to carry on King William's wars. But the great contentions between the two Companies soon made it necessary to unite them, and a union was finally effected in 1708, when an act of parliament was passed, establishing the conjoined association under the title of 'The United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies.'

The constitution adopted for managing the affairs of this great Company was as follows: The whole of the business was to be in the hands of two courts-a Court of Proprietors and a Court of Directors. The qualification for being a member of the Court of Proprietors was to be the possession of at least £500 of the Company's stock; but the possession of more than that quantity of stock was not to give a proprietor more than a single vote. The directors were to be twenty-four in number, of whom one was to be chairman, and another deputy-chairman; they were to be chosen annually by the votes of the proprietors at a general meeting; and the qualification for being elected a director was to be the possession of at least £2000 of the Company's stock. Four general courts, or Courts of Proprietors, were to be held in the year—a court once a quarter; additional courts, however, might be held when circumstances required it. The Courts of Directors were to meet as often as the directors themselves saw fit, and at such times and places as they might appoint; the presence of thirteen directors to be necessary to constitute a court. According to this constitution,' says Mr Mill, 'the supreme power was vested in the Court of Proprietors. In the first place, they held the legislative power entire; all laws and regulations, all determinations of dividend, all grants of money, were made by the Court of Proprietors. To act under their ordinances, and manage the business of routine, was the department reserved for the Court of Directors. In the second place, the supreme power was secured to the Court of Proprietors by the important power of displacing annually the persons whom they chose to act in their behalf. In this constitution, if the Court of Proprietors be regarded as representing the general body of the people, the Court of Directors as representing an aristocratical senate, and the chairman as representing the sovereign, we have an image of the British constitution. In the constitution, however, of the East India Company, the power allotted to the democratical part was so great, that a small portion may seem to have been reserved to the other two. Yet the actual result has been extremely different. Notwithstanding the power which, by the theory of the constitution, was reserved to the popular part of the system, all

power has centered in the Court of Directors; and the government of the Company has been an oligarchy. In fact, so far from meddling too much, the Court of Proprietors have not attended to the common affairs even sufficiently for the business of inspection.'

The Company, constituted on the footing here described, were as yet nothing more than an association of merchants exporting bullion, lead, quicksilver, woollen cloths, and hardware to India; and importing in return calicoes, raw silk, diamonds, tea (the first order for the importation of which was given in the year 1667), porcelain, pepper, drugs, and saltpetre. Their governmental establishments were Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta; the last of which was only a short time previously a mere commercial agency dependent on Madras. Already, however, they had formed the design of obtaining an influence in India by other means than that of simple commerce; and the extension of the Company's settlements soon became the main object of those charged with the direction of the Company's affairs in India. The first notable advantage gained by the Company was in the year 1715. In that year, an embassy' being sent on a commercial commission to Delhi, it happened that a medical gentleman named Hamilton, who accompanied the factors, had the good fortune to cure the Emperor Feroksere of a severe illness, which could not be overcome by the ignorant native physicians. In gratitude for this important service, the emperor, at Hamilton's request, granted liberty to the Company to purchase in Bengal thirty-seven townships in addition to that of Calcutta; he also conferred upon them some important commercial privileges, which soon rendered Calcutta a flourishing settlement.

From this period the Company's power in India continued to increase. At home, however, they had to contend with a powerful opposition, the general verdict of public opinion even at that time being hostile to such a monopoly of trade as that vested in the East India Company. As the time for the renewal of the Company's charter came round, the most energetic efforts were employed to throw open the Indian trade to the general enterprise of the community; and it is probable that these efforts might have succeeded, had it not been for the influence which the Company obtained over the mind of government by means of loans of money to help government through cases of emergency. Thus, in the year 1744, the Company advanced to government a loan of £1,000,000 at three per cent., in consideration of which they obtained an extension of their monopoly till the year 1780.

It is at this period-about the middle of the last century—that the career of the Company begins to be most interesting to the historian. For a century and a half, an association of merchants and speculators had been in existence, carrying on a trade with India for the purposes of pecuniary profit. At one time the trade had been brisk, at another dull; and in no respect was it peculiarly

distinguished from the various other trades in which people at that time engaged for the purpose of money-making. The name of India, it is true, had still a mysterious sound in the public ear; vague ideas were still entertained of its wealth; and on that account, perhaps, there was a greater ambition among speculators to be proprietors of East Indian than of other kinds of stock; but, upon the whole, the extent of trade carried on, and the rate of profits. made by partners of the East India Company during the former half of the eighteenth century, were not nearly so large as, with our present notions of India, and the power of the East India Company, we are apt to imagine them to have been. It was about the middle of the century that that course of events began along which the East India Company, and with it the British nation, have marched to their world-envied supremacy over Central and Southern Asia. This course of events, striking in themselves, and deserving of attention, on account of their essential intertexture with the British history of the last century, we proceed to sketch. It will be necessary, before doing so, however, to give our readers some idea of the field into which, by means of the East India trade, British industry and enterprise had been introduced; in other words, to give them some account of the history and the internal condition of that portion of the earth's surface called India, previous to its invasion and conquest by us money-making and large-brained islanders.

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INDIA PREVIOUS TO THE BRITISH CONQUEST.

Passing over the legendary chronologies of the Hindus themselves, the utility of which as materials for history may be judged of by the fact, that they speak of kings reigning for twenty-three thousand years each, and extend back to nearly four millions of years in all, the first historical notices we have of India are those given by the Greek writers, who narrate the invasion of India by Alexander the Great, in the year 327 before Christ. From these notices,' says Mr Mill, the conclusion has been drawn that the Hindus, at the time of Alexander's invasion, were in a state of manners, society, and knowledge exactly the same with that in which they were discovered by the nations of modern Europe: nor is there any reason for differing widely from this opinion. It is certain that the few features of which we have any description from the Greeks bear no inaccurate resemblance to those which are found to distinguish this people at the present day.'

About the beginning of the eleventh century, however, this Hindu population-who, it is probable, had till that time been the exclusive inhabitants of the country lying between the Himalaya Mountains and the Indian Ocean-were mixed with a new race, professing a different religion, and following different customs. These new competitors for the possession of Hindustan were Mohammedans, who