Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/265

 EUROPEAN NATIONS. <2i9 chartered rights were but imperfectly regarded j the East India Company had as yet acquired little poli- tical weight in the state ; it was not, therefore, in a condition to influence the legislature, and to hood^ wink the nation; and as its privilege was too palpably at variance with natural right, no opportunity of in- vading it was lost sight of. It was the fate of the Indian commerce, that the establishment of civil liberty, and of the regular authority of the laws, so beneficial to every other branch of industry, should prove injurious to it alone. Before the revolution, all the charters granted to the company were granted by the king only, without the sanction of his parliament ; and, on the advice of eminent law- yers, were very generally and properly disregarded. At the close of the seventeenth century, an active commerce was conducted by the persons designated by the monopolists under the cant term of interlO' perSy in every part of India, notwithstanding the vio- lence and open hostility of the East India Company, When we read the accounts of the state of India at this period, advert to the prosperity of many of the native states, the confidence which subsisted between the European traders and the natives, and the practical knowledge which we had of the people from the Red Sea to China, we are com- pelled to admit, that, for 1^0 years, we have been not only in a stationary, but a retrograde state.