hange of the kind was made
or meditated before the sailing of the ships for Europe: for it is
hardly to be imagined that reasons wholly unlooked-for should appear for
setting aside a plan concerning the success of which the Council-General
seemed so very confident, that a new one should be proposed, that its
merits should be discussed among the moneyed men, that it should be
adopted in Council, and officially ready for transmission to Madras, in
twelve or thirteen days. In this perplexity of plan and of transmission,
the Court of Directors may have made an arrangement of their affairs on
the groundwork of the first scheme, which was officially and
authentically conveyed to them. The fundamental alteration of that plan
in India might require another of a very different kind in England,
which the arrangements taken in consequence of the first might make it
difficult, if not impossible, to execute. What must add to the confusion
is, that the alteration has not the regular and official authority of
the original plan, and may be presumed to indicate with certainty
nothing more than that the business is _again_ afloat, and that no
scheme is finally determined on. Thus the Company is left without any
fixed data upon which they can make a rational disposition of their
affairs.

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 tra