The act 6 Anne, c. 17, already men tioned, conferred upon the Company the exclusive privilege, as regarded English subjects, of trading to all places eastward of the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magalhaens ; and these privileges, with some unimportant modifications, which it is not necessary to explain, were confirmed by successive acts of parliament. and continued until 1814. By the act 53 Geo. III. c. 155, passed in 1813, the Company's charter was renewed for twenty years, but received some important modifications, the trade to the whole of the Company's territories and to India generally being thrown open to British subjects under certain regulations ; the trade between the United Kingdom and China was still reserved as a monopoly in the hands of the East India Company. It was also provided by the act of 1813 that the territorial and commercial accounts of the Company should be kept and ar ranged so as to exhibit the receipts and expenditure of each branch distinctly from those of the other branch.
The act of 1833, by which the charter was renewed for twenty years, took away from the Company the right of trading either to its own territories or the domi nions of any native power in India or in China, and threw the whole completely open to the enterprise of individual mer chants.
The progress of the Company's trade at different periods has not been regu larly published. The following particu lars, showing the annual average amount of the Company's trade in the forty years between 1732 and 1772, are from the report of the select committee of 1773 :— Exports of goods and bullion . £742,285 Bills of exchange paid . . 247,492 Total cost of goods received . 989,777 Amount of sales of goods . 2,171,877 The average annual profit amounted, from 1733 to 1742, to 116 per cent. ; in the second ten years, to 90 per cent.; in the third, to 84 per cent.; in the fourth, to 132 per cent.; and embracing the whole forty years, the gross profit amount ed to 119i per cent. It must be borne in mind, however, that this was gross profit, and that the expenses of carrying on the trade according to the method em ployed of establishing factories were ne cessarily very great. In fact, they were such as to absorb the profits and to bring the Company considerably into debt : a result which it would be more correct to attribute to the political character of the Company than to its necessary commercial expenditure. In 1780 the entire value of the export goods and bullion amounted to only 401,1661., a large part of which must have consisted of military stores and supplies required by the various factories and establishments of the Company. In 1784 Mr. Pitt made a great reduction in the duty on tea, and this gave a stimulus to the exports ; but in each of the three years which preceded the renewal of the charter of 1793 they did not exceed one million sterling. Under the provisions of this new charter, the Company was oound to provide 3000 tons of shipping query year for the accommodation of private traders, and under this apparently unimportant degree of competition the trade of the Company increased rapidly and greatly. During the last four years
of its existence, from 1810-11 to 1813-14, the average annual exports of the Com pany to the three Presidencies, Batavia, Prince of Wales's Island, St. Helena, and Bencoolen, and to China, amounted to 2,145,3651. Of this sum 102,5851. con sisted of exports to China, and 397,4811. of military and other stores.
On the occasion of the renewal of its charter, viz. in 1813, the Company was obliged to make a further ces sion of its exclusive privileges, and sti pulating only for the continuance of its monopoly in the importation of tea into this country, to allow the unrestricted in tercourse of British merchants with the whole of its Indian possessions. Under these circumstances the Company found it impossible to enter into competition with private traders, whose business was conducted with greater vigilance and economy than was possible on the part of a great company ; its exports of merchan dise to India fell off during the ten years from 600,0001. in 1814-15, to 275,0001. in 1823-24, and to 73,0001. in the following year, after which all such exportation of merchandise to India on the part of the Company may be said to have ceased. The shipments to China were still con tinued, and large quantities of stores were also sent to India for the supply of the army and other public establishments.
In the twenty years from 1813 to 1833 the value of goods exported by the pri vate trade increased from about 1,000,0001. sterling to 3,979,0721. in 1830, while the Company's trade fell from 826,5581. to 149,1931. The actual returns of the trade at the commencement, middle, and termination of the above twenty years. were as follows :— By the East By Private India Company. Traders.
1814 . £826,558 . . £1,048,132 1815 . 996,248 . . 1,569,513 1822 . 606,089 . . 2,838,354 1823 . 458,550 . . 2,957,705 1831 . 146,480 . . 3,488,571 1832 . 149,193 . . 3,601,093The impossibility, as thus shown, of the Company's entering into competition with private merchants had a powerful influence with parliament when it was last called upon to legislate upon the affairs of India, and in the charter of 1833 not only was the monopoly of the China trade abo lished, but the Company was restricted from carrying on any commercial opera tions whatever upon its own account, and was confined altogether to the territorial and political management of the vast em pire which it has brought beneath its sway. The title of the Company is now simply " The East India Company." Their warehouses and the greater part of the property which was required for com mercial purposes were directed to be sold. The real capital of the Company in 1832 was estimated at 21,000,0001. The dividends guaranteed by the act which abolished trading privileges is 630,000/., being per cent. ou a nominal capital of 6,000,0001. The dividends are charge able on the revenues of India, and are redeemable by parliament after 1874.