its dividends had greatly diminished, was still in existence, and still retained its castles and warehouses, its fleet of fine merchantmen, and its able and zealous factors, thoroughly qualified by a long experience to transact business both in the palaces and in the bazaars of the East, and accustomed to look for direction to the India House alone.  The private trader therefore still ran great risk of being treated as a smuggler, if not as a pirate.  He might indeed, if he was wronged, apply for redress to the tribunals of his country.  But years must elapse before his cause could be heard; his witnesses must be conveyed over fifteen thousand miles of sea; and in the meantime he was a ruined man.  The experiment of free trade with India had therefore been tried under every disadvantage, or, to speak more correctly, had not been tried at all.  The general opinion had always been that some restriction was necessary; and that opinion had been confirmed by all that had happened since the old restrictions had been removed.  The doors of the House of Commons were again besieged by the two great contending factions of the City.  The Old Company offered, in return for a monopoly secured by law, a loan of seven hundred thousand pounds; and the whole body of Tories was for accepting the offer.  But those indefatigable agitators who had, ever since the Revolution, been striving to obtain a share in the trade of the Eastern seas exerted themselves at this conjuncture more strenuously than ever, and found a powerful patron in Montague.

That dexterous and eloquent statesman had two objects in view.  One was to obtain for the State, as the price of the monopoly, a sum much larger than the Old Company was able to give.  The other was to promote the interest of his own party.  Nowhere was the conflict between Whigs and Tories sharper than in the City of London; and the influence of the City of London was felt to the remotest corner of the realm.  To elevate the Whig section of that mighty commercial aristocracy which congregated under the arches of the Royal Exchange, and to depress the Tory section, had long been one of Montague’s favourite schemes.  He had already formed one citadel in the heart of that great emporium; and he now thought that it might be in his power to erect and garrison a second stronghold in a position scarcely less commanding.  It had often been said, in times of civil war, that whoever was master of the Tower and of Tilbury Fort was master of London.  The fastnesses by means of which Montague proposed to keep the capital obedient in times of peace and of constitutional government were of a different kind.  The Bank was one of his fortresses; and he trusted that a new India House would be the other.