By grants from the native powers, the Company are in actual possession of many extensive and valuable territories. The doctrine of the law of England, in regard to the operation of these Grants, was distinctly and officially declared in the Report of the Attorney-General Mr. Pratt, and Solicitor-General Mr. Charles Yorke, in the year 1757, viz. That the moment the _right of property_ vested in the Company by the Indian Grants, the _right of sovereignty_ vested necessarily in the Crown of England. "The property of the soil (said those eminent lawyers) vested in the Company by the Indian Grants, _subject only_ to Your Majesty's right of sovereignty over the settlements, and over the inhabitants as British subjects; who carry with them Your Majesty's laws, wherever they form colonies, and receive Your Majesty's protection by virtue of your Royal Charters[12]." In considering this head of right, the case of _the five Northern Circars_, to which the Company lay claim in their Petition, demands a particular attention; because, the advocates of the Company's pretensions are under a manifest error, with respect to their tenure of those territories. They maintain, that the Circars are held by the Company in perpetuity, under _a military service_, as tributaries to the Indian Power or Powers by which they were originally ceded; and that the Crown of England has no title to interfere, between them and their supposed Indian Chief. This pretension renders it absolutely necessary, to take a general view of the situation of the Company with respect to the Circars.