Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/403

 Chap. VIII.] A SCOTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY. 369

assent in your kingdom of Scotland, for erecting a company trading to Africji and a.d. 1005. the Indies, is likely to bring many prejudices and mischiefs to all your majesty's subjects that are concerned in the wealth and trade of this nation." After quoting largely from the act in support of this allegation, it thus continues: — " By reason of which great advantages granted to the Scots East India Com- pany, and the duties antl difficulties that lie upon that trade in England, a great part of the stock and shipping of this nation will be carried thither, and by this means Scotland will be made a free port for all East India commodities ; and consequently those several places which were supplied from England will be furnished from thence much cheaper than can be done by the English ; and therefore this nation will lose the benefit of supplying foreign parts with those commodities, which hath always been a gi'eat article in the balance of oui- foreign trade. Moreover, the said commodities will unavoidably be brought by the Scots into England by stealth, both by sea and land, to the vast prejudice of the English trade and navigation, and to the great detriment of your majesty in your customs."

The king was thus i)laced in a very awkward i)redicament. He could not Awkward

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question the competency of parliament to grant the act complanied of without the king. attacking the national independence, and di.sappointing what had become one of the national ho]ies of Scotland ; nor could he continue to sanction the act without placing himself in decided opposition to the legislature of England, and .some of the most strongly cherished prejudices of the Engli.sh people. He therefore answered somewhat vaguely, " 1 have been ill served in Scotland, but I hope •some remedies may be found to prevent the inconveniencies which may arise from this act ;" and shortly after showed that he was really dissati.sfied with the management of his ministers in Scotland by dismissing most of them from office. The English })arliameut took still more decided steps ; and on receiving the report of a committee which had been appointed to examine the methods by which the act had been obtained, and the proceedings under it, the commons resolved, " that the directors of the company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies, administering and taking here an oath de Jideli, and under colour of a Scots act styling themselves a compan3% were guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour, and that the Lord Belliaven, William Paterson (and other indi- viduals named), be impeached of the same." This resolution, violent as it undoubtedly was in its nature, and offensive in its terms, wtis not beyond the competency of the English parliament ; and therefore, however much it must have roused the indignation of the Scots, did not properly furni.sh matter for formal complaint. Another step, however, was of a more objectionable nature.

The Scots company had, as already mentioned, sent a deputation to Ham- Proceedings

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burg, and had every prospect 01 obtjumng a liberal subscription, wlien all their hopes were frustrated by hostility from an imexpected quarter. The nature of the hostility will be best ex])lained by a memorial presented on the 7th of Vol. I. 47