The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 464: RENEWAL OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S CHARTER.

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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

RENEWAL OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S CHARTER.

It was generally supposed at this time that the charter of the East India Company, which was on the eve of expiration, would be abolished, and that the whole Indian trade would be thereby thrown open to British enterprise. The public expectation however, was doomed to be disappointed. On the 23rd of April Mr. Dundas brought the question before the house, in consequence of a petition from the company, and after taking a view of the prosperous state of India under the present system, he brought in a bill for the renewal of the charter for twenty years, which passed without a division. At the same time Dundas proposed certain regulations, tending to promote a free trade, but not interfering with the company’s charter.