506 British India, and the Renewal of [MAY, 



We will have no room for misunderstanding. We know that the trade 

 to British India has increased considerably since 1814 ; but we know, 

 too, that it has fallen very far short, both in extent and profit- but in 

 the last respect more particularly of what the Court of Directors truly 

 designate as the " Sanguine Theory" entertained by Mr. Rickards and 

 others. That agents have thriven and fattened upon it we do not doubt, 

 for their per centage is carried to credit, whatever be the upshot of the 

 speculation ; but owners and shippers can tell, we suspect, a very differ- 

 ent tale. Let reference be made to the prices current of Calcutta and 

 Bombay, and the rates of freight to and from those places. We do not 

 hesitate to avouch our conviction, that if, by some compulsory enactment, 

 all persons, with the exception of those engaged in commerce, were com- 

 pelled to proceed over-land to India, three-fourths of the shipping now 

 engaged in the Indian trade would be thrown out of employ ; for it is 

 the passage-money alone that keeps them afloat. As it is, only the 

 agents thrive, and ship-owners, as the whole city of London can testify, 

 are driven to shifts which in former days would not have been thought 

 the most reputable. We may mention, as an example, an instance which 

 has lately come to our knowledge, where a surgeon's berth on board a 

 free trader was applied for, and promised, provided the party should be 

 able to persuade his friends to engage a certain quantity of freight. Ships 

 are sailing, moreover, day after day, half laden, because their owners are 

 afraid to hazard their capital, with a contingency of loss very little short 

 of certainty ; and every bazar and warehouse in Calcutta are crammed 

 with European articles, until the rent eats up not only the profit, but the 

 whole value of the goods. Meanwhile, the agents clap the shippers on the 

 back, and cajole them if possible into becoming ship-owners ; and the 

 trade goes merrily on, because those who are intensely engaged in spe- 

 culation are too much occupied in their own schemes to see or regard 

 the many who drop from the same path into ruin and beggary, like the 

 passengers on the bridge in the Vision of Mirzah. 



If, therefore, Sir Thomas Monro and others, who in 18 13 maintained, 

 in opposition to the sanguine theorists, that the trade to India was not 

 susceptible of any " vast extension," and supposed, " most erroneously" 

 that native Indians could supply themselves with the little they did 

 want, at a cheaper rate from their own manufactures, than by importing 

 British or European fabrics *, " did entertain opinions which time and 

 experience have proved to be too narrow, their error was one only of 

 degree ; and those persons who flew into the opposite extreme, who 

 were at least as positive, and whose sentiments were far more extrava- 

 gant, have not the smallest right to raise a shout of triumph over their 

 opponents. If, indeed, they had had the fairness to abstain from giving 

 injurious paraphrases of the opinions entertained by those opponents, and 

 had quoted them verbatim, every shadow of a pretext for such exulta- 

 tion would have vanished. Mr. Rickards and his party have cried 

 " Eureka" with great emphasis and perseverance ; and because the friends 

 of the Company were partially in error, have assumed that they who dif- 

 fered from them " toto ccelo" were altogether right. The utmost, how- 

 ever, that impartiality can declare, now that the page of the last sixteen 

 years is spread before us, is that the truth lies somewhere between the 



* Mr. Rickards, Part I. The italics are his own. 



