ANALYSIS OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE EAST-INDIA COMPANY, AND OF THE LAWS PASSED BY PARLIAMENT FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THEIR AFFAIRS, AT HOME AND ABROAD. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COMPANY, AND OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE BRITISH POWER IN INDIA. BY PETER AUBER, Esq. ASSISTANT-SECRETARY TO THE HONOURABLE COURT OF DIRECTORS. LONDON: PRINTED FOR KINGSBURY, PARBURY, AND ALLEN, LEADENHALL-STREET PALL-MALL EAST. PREFACE. THE frequent reference which is required to the Acts of Parliament passed from time to time relating to the East-India Company, and to the circumstances which led to such legislative provisions, suggested the present work. Its extent considerably exceeds what was originally contemplated. On some of the points, matter is introduced not immediately relating to the Company, but tending to elucidate the subject under which it is embraced. A brief account of the rise of the Company in England, and of the progress of the British power in India, is followed by an Analysis of the existing Laws to the close of the session on the 31st May 1826. A short statement is prefixed to the several heads under which those laws are contained, explanatory of the cause of their enactment, and also of the opinions entertained by the leading political characters of the day a 3 day when the subjects came under discussion in Parliament. The system by which the affairs of India are governed was framed upon mature deliberation. Its object was to preserve the constitution of the country, and to secure to the Company their rights and privileges. The act of 1784, which originated that system, contained the declaration, "that to pur sue schemes of conquest and extension of "dominion in India, are measures repugnant "to the wish, the honour, and the policy of "this nation." The territories possessed by the Company at that period had been acquired principally under the governments of Lord Clive and Mr. Hastings. The means which were necessary for the preservation of those acquisitions, inevitably led to their extension; such extension almost immediately following the decided opinion which Parliament had recorded. The war during the administration of Lord Cornwallis, in 1789, with Tippoo, was provoked by that chieftain's attack on Travancore. In 1799 and 1803, under the government of the Marquis Wellesley, the designs of Tippoo, the |