Without inquiring into the practicability of realizing the flattering estimate made out by the Indian Commissioners, or the policy which dictated a still more rigorous monopoly of the produce of the Eastern Islands, it ought to be remarked, although it seems never to have been adverted to by the Commissioners, whose calculations and plans were exclusively of a commercial nature, that the original situation of the Company as a mere mercantile body, looking out for trade and not dominion, had undergone a material alteration, by the acquisition it had made from the middle of the last century of considerable territorial possessions, especially on the island of Java. To use the words of one of the most enlightened men who now adorns his country, and is prepared to give energy to a better state of things[8], "these territorial acquisitions became to the Company a source of new relations. In consequence of them, new rights were acquired and obligations of a novel kind were contracted, as well with regard to the territories themselves as the population upon them. The nature of these rights and duties might have been deemed worth inquiry; and as all these territorial acquisitions were made by a delegated authority derived from the government at home, it was further worthy of investigation how far the government itself was entitled to a direct share in the acquisitions made, and how far it was bound to controul and superintend the exercise of those duties which were newly contracted. A consideration of these points would have led to the important question, how far, on a renewal of the Company's charter, it would be requisite to alter and modify its conditions according to existing circumstances, and especially how far it would have been expedient, in future, to leave the Company the exclusive trade, and at the same time the uncontrolled sovereignty over the same country." But however natural it may be, at the present moment, to consider questions of this kind, it was perhaps at that time beyond the common course of human thought to entertain doubts on the subject. From an honourable regard for ancient institutions, the mercantile system of the Company was still considered with reverence and respect; it had been at all times the boast and pride of the nation; the services which the Company had rendered to the state in its earlier days, and the immense benefits which the government had been enabled, by its means, to spread among the community at large, had rendered the East India Company and all its privileges, objects of peculiar care and tenderness. The rights of sovereignty which the Company afterwards acquired, were obtained by degrees and almost imperceptibly. Every acquisition of the kind had been considered, at the time, merely as the means of increasing its mercantile profits, and all its territorial rights were looked upon as subservient to its mercantile system.