The fact is, that the principles and economy of the Company’s trade have been so completely corrupted by turning it into a vehicle for tribute, that, whenever circumstances require it to be replaced again upon a bottom truly commercial, hardly anything but confusion and disasters can be expected as the first results.  Even before the acquisition of the territorial revenues, the system of the Company’s commerce was not formed upon principles the most favorable to its prosperity; for, whilst, on the one hand, that body received encouragement by royal and Parliamentary charters, was invested with several ample privileges, and even with a delegation of the most essential prerogatives of the crown,—­on the other, its commerce was watched with an insidious jealousy, as a species of dealing dangerous to the national interests.  In that light, with regard to the Company’s imports, there was a total prohibition from domestic use of the most considerable articles of their trade,—­that is, of all silk stuffs, and stained and painted cottons.  The British market was in a great measure interdicted to the British trader.  Whatever advantages might arise to the general trading interests of the kingdom by this restraint, its East India interest was undoubtedly injured by it.  The Company is also, and has been from a very early period, obliged to furnish the Ordnance with a quantity of saltpetre at a certain price, without any reference to the standard of the markets either of purchase or of sale.  With regard to their export, they were put also under difficulties upon very mistaken notions; for they were obliged to export annually a certain proportion of British manufactures, even though they should find for them in India none or but an unprofitable want.  This compulsory export might operate, and in some instances has operated, in a manner more grievous than a tax to the amount of the loss in trade:  for the payment of a tax is in general divided in unequal portions between the vender and consumer, the largest part falling upon the latter; in the case before us the tax may be as a dead charge on the trading capital of the Company.

The spirit of all these regulations naturally tended to weaken, in the very original constitution of the Company, the main-spring of the commercial machine, the principles of profit and loss.  And the mischief arising from an inattention to those principles has constantly increased with the increase of its power.  For when the Company had acquired the rights of sovereignty in India, it was not to be expected that the attention to profit and loss would have increased.  The idea of remitting tribute in goods naturally produced an indifference to their price and quality,—­the goods themselves appearing little else than a sort of package to the tribute.  Merchandise taken as tribute, or bought in lieu of it, can never long be of a kind or of a price fitted to a market which stands solely on its commercial reputation.  The indifference of the