niards and Portuguese had everywhere excited by their unceremonious atrocities, may be supposed to have had their effect on the English, who are a reflecting people; and it is to be hoped also that the progress of sound policy and of Christian knowledge, however slow, may be taken into the account in some degree. They went out too under different circumstances—not as mere adventurers, but as sober traders, aiming at establishing a permanent and enriching commerce with these countries; and if Christianity, if the laws of justice and of humanity were to be violated, it must be under a guise of policy, and a form of law.
We shall not enter into a minute notice of the earliest proceedings of the English in India, because for upwards of a century from the formation of their first trading association, those proceedings are comparatively insignificant. During that period Bombay had been ceded as part of a marriage-portion by the Portuguese to Charles II.; factories had been established at Surat, Madras, Masulipatam, Visigapatam, Calcutta, and other places; but it was not till the different chartered companies were consolidated into one grand company in 1708, styled "The United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies," that the English affairs in the east assumed an imposing aspect. From that period the East India Company commenced that career of steady grasping at dominion over the Indian territories, which has never been relaxed for a moment, but, while it has for ever worn the grave air of moderation, and has assumed the language of right, has gone on adding field to field and house to house—swallowing up state after state, and prince after prince, till it has finally found itself the
