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THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 
A complete history of tlie En<^luli Bast India 
Company — Lliat fiinious body wli.cli ran a vicissi- 
tacliuous career for more ihan two centuries and a 
half — has hitherto been a desideraiuin. John 
Bruce's Annals, in three quarto volumes, publislied 
in 1810, whiabie as they ure and always will be, 
close with the year 1708, when the old London 
Comoany was amalgamated with its new rival, 
the "so-called English Company, and formed the 
United Company ; while Peter Anber'a more 
modest work, The llise uf the British Power in 
India, is on somewhat dillerent lines, and covers 
the ground only between 1711 and 1834. Sir 
William Hunter's Ilisloi ij of British India, thou)j;h 
naturally it dealt largely with the Company's 
transactions, covered both a wider and a more limi- 
ted field, and, moreover, owing to the writer's 
lamented death, terminated with the same date as 
Bruce's book. Other woiks, especially those pub- 
lished of recent years, contain valuable details in 
couaection with the East India Company ; but a 
history of the body from first to last was much 
wanted. This want has now been supplied by Mr. 
Beckles Willson, who, in two handsome volumes , 
has given a most interesting and readable account 
of the beginning, progress, struggles, rise, expan 
sion and ultimate dissolution of the East India 
Company. In his preface Mr. Willson explains as 
follows the purpose of the book and the meaning 
of its title :— 
When one bears iu mind that Jehan Kompani was 
never in India, that he was a purely Enpjlish mag- 
nate, with a throne, council chamber and exchequer, 
not at Surat or Caloiitta but in Leadenhall Street, the 
task of tracing a career of two-aud-three ixuarter cen- 
turies within the compass of one book can hardly be 
deemed supererogatory. To assume that a history of 
British India can ever consistently be made to servo 
as a history of tlie East India Company is like suppos- 
ing that the history of the wars and foreign relations 
of the British Empire from 17G0 to 1820 will serve us 
for a biography of George III. The Company's 
identity is largely obscured by the exploits of Olive' 
and Hastings, and Wellesley, who very often disobeyed 
their master, and acted on their own initiative 
without any reference to the policy and prejudices of 
Leadenhall Street. In which disobedient conduct, 
however striking and romantic, there is little or 
nothing of what (borrowing the phrase from Adam 
Smith) I may call the LcdgLr aspect: too much, 
withal, of the Sword. 
As for ludin, it was but a portion of (hs field worked 
by the Compaiiy. Its operations iu Tereia, China, iu 
the Far East, in the KcU Sen, iu St. Heleua, are in- 
teresting and even vital, but we should not look for a 
narralioB of them iu a history of India. Such an 
episode as the Boston Tea Parly of 177,^, and its con- 
nection with the Company, miglit well be, although it 
ia not, in all the English and American popular 
histories ; btit how unrcaKouable it would be to expect 
to find it iu Mill, Thornton, Gleig, .Tud Malcolm. 
As a trading body the Eat-t India Company 
began, and a trading body it continued for over 
two centuries, the wars undertaken by its servants 
and the a..nexations of territory in India being, as 
Mr. Wilisoa shows, often iu ditect opposition to 
the Company's orders. But, unfortunately lor the 
• Ledger and Svord ; or. The Honourable Company 
of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies 
(1509-1874). By Beckles Willson. With 2 Frontis- 
pieces by Maurice Greiffenhagen. 16 Portraits and 
Illustrations ;tnd 1 Map. 2 vols, Svo. (Yol. I. pp. 
xii + 152, Vol, II. pp. iv -I- 138), price iU. net.— 
ODgmans, Grteu & Co., London. 
fair fame of the Company, Mr. Will.son also de- 
monstrates that the directors and shareholders 
were always ready to salve their consciences and 
share in the plunder. I see that the late Mr, 
Herbert Spencer had been for some years desirous 
that " a work .-should be got up giving an account 
of the ways ia which we have acquired our possess- 
sions of all kind.'.'' Mr, Willsou's second volume 
tells to a great extent how we came by India, and 
a very unpleasant story it is — of bogus grievances 
against native 1 ulers, followed by agcressive wars 
and annexations, or of other potentates being per- 
8uadud to part with t!;eir territories for a monetary 
consideratioti, which, in some cases, they never got. 
Or, again, as Mi-. Willson puts it, "as a result of 
the war with Hnlland, in her iniserable character 
of forced ally of revolutionary France, several im- 
portant conquests' were efTected [in 1795| over her 
Eastern set^tiements by expeditions fitted out from 
Madras." Among these settlements was Ceylon, 
for which, with its cinnamon, the Company had 
sighed so long; and Mr. Willson adds that "the 
Company considered that it was to derive (he same 
advantages in Ceylon as it enjoyed in India. Bub 
Pitt placed the Ceylon. settlements under the direct 
ailministration ol the Crown, and appointed a 
Governor wlio was to be altogether independent of 
(he authority of the Company.'' The reason for 
Pitt's action was, of course, the rising of ihe Sin- 
halese against.the extortions and oppressions of the 
Company's agent, Mr. Andrews, and liis dubashes. 
That the Company's servants in the East, from 
the highest to the lowest, thought no shame of 
" shaking the pagoda-tree " for their own benefit, 
no matter at v;hosc expense, is abundantly clear 
from this book ; though there was this palliation, 
that the salaries they received were utterly inade- 
quate, they being allowed private trade to 
augment their incomes. Caawe wonder, therefore, 
that iieculation was coumion, that the moral tone 
was low, and that quarrels were constant '.' I think 
Mr. Willson lays too much stress on the concern, 
exhibited at incervals by the Company, for the 
evangelizatiou of the natives of India. !Some, also 
ot the chaplains sent out to preach to the 
"heathen" were a disgrace to the country from 
which they came. 
From what I have said above, it w-ill be seen that 
Mr. Willson does not spare his own countrymen 
in relating t heir doings in England or in the East ; 
but I must add that lie i.s equally unsparing of the 
Dutch aiid the Freucb, though, in the case of these 
hu often fiil.s to produce evidence for bib accusatiousj 
v. hich appear to bs ilrawii almo.'st entirely Iroiu 
English sources. Tiie first vulumi?, in fact, teems 
with vituperation and sneers at tlic expense of the 
peiple who happened to be, iu the seventeenth 
century, the great rivals iu trade of the English in 
the East, To the miserable " Amboyna massacre* 
Sir William Hunter, in my opinion, devoted too 
much space in his Hislori/ of British India ; but, at) 
any rate, he treated it in a judicial manner. Mr. 
Willson, on the other hand, spoils what may be a 
g'lod ease, by exaggerated, unjust languaQ;e. 
Another fault of Mr. Willson's, which, however, 
seems to he confined to the first volume, is 
a tendency to draw on his imagination when 
describing incidents, Thi«=, though it adds to 
the picturesqueuess of the narrative, is apt 
to create a doubt regarding the truth of what 
may be accurate statements. Thus, we are told, 
on page 14, that "the hopeful merchants went 
down to the docks tt; bid Wood fun;wcll ; he iiav^d 
