In 1793, the termination of the period assigned to the exclusive privileges of the Company so nearly approached, that the question, of renewing the charter, and of confirming or changing the present system of government, could no longer be deferred. People had now so generally acquired the habit of lifting their eyes to the management of national affairs; and equal treatment to all so forcibly recommended itself as the best rule of government, that the commercial and manufacturing population were impelled to make an effort, more than usually strong, for the freedom of the Eastern trade. The principal places of manufacture and commerce, in the kingdom; Liverpool, Glasgow, Paisley, Manchester, Norwich, Exeter; exhibited combinations of the merchants and manufacturers, who passed the strongest resolutions; importuned the ministers; petitioned the legislature; and desired to have an opportunity of proving how much the real policy of commerce was violated, and the wealth of the country kept down, by the monopoly of so large a field of trade as that unhappily consigned to the East India Company.

The Indian government was so organized, as now very well to answer ministerial purposes; it was therefore the study of ministers to preserve things as they were. The Board of Control and the Court of Directors cast, with some skill, the parts which they had respectively to perform. A committee of Directors was appointed, whose business it was to draw up reports upon the subject of the Eastern trade, and to answer the arguments of those by whom the freedom of that trade was advocated or claimed.