and the final subordination of the Company to the Crown may be dated from the time that it passed into law. "Control" now really came to mean "Government."
"It evidently appears," Lord Lansdowne wrote to Morellet, "that the territorial revenue has diverted the attention of everybody concerned about India from every consideration of commerce, and actually cost the commerce 500,000l., upon a balance during the last eight years, instead of the Company's gaining anything from it, as you will see by the paper which I enclose to you, upon the authenticity of which you may entirely rely. It also appears that the administration of the territorial revenues is likely to produce corruption in our home Government by the patronage which must attend upon it, as well as impede our foreign commerce by diverting the attention of our most capable people from an object of slow to one of immediate advantage, besides the probability of its drawing us into war both with the country and European powers, and at any rate warping and giving a wrong bias to all our negotiations. What however I have most pleasure to observe, after the above disagreeable reflections, is that our public is open to comprehend and adopt the most liberal ideas, with regard to our foreign dependencies as well as to commerce in general, if Government will but lead them. It is just the reverse of what it is with you. Our people give no equivocal proof of it by their conduct about the slave trade, when the majority of each town which profits by it are loud and enthusiastic for its abolition upon principles of morality, freedom, and commercial honour, and the manufacturers give away gratis the impressions of a pamphlet, of which I send you six."[1]
Consistently with the above opinions Lord Lansdowne opposed the further step proposed to be taken in 1786 in the direction of Government interference in India, nor did the Bill pass the House of Lords without great difficulty. "Mr. Pitt," Dundas wrote to Cornwallis, "never had such a set made against him; it was thought necessary to call in the outposts, and the auxiliary
- ↑ Lord Lansdowne to Morellet, April 7th, 1788.
