Whether the Court of Directors endeavour to fix that menacing character upon the proposed Import Trade, as a bar against any further requisition, is a question which will naturally occur to any dispassionate person, who is not immediately and personally interested in the conditions of the Charter; and he will be strongly inclined to the affirmative in that question, when he finds, that the reason which they have alleged for their resistance, is their apprehension of the increased activity which the practice of smuggling would acquire, from the free return of the out-port ships from India to their respective ports. It is not a little extraordinary, that they should so strenuously urge this argument against those persons, who, while they propose the measure, are themselves responsible for the good management and protection of the revenue; and who must therefore be supposed to feel the necessity of providing means and regulations, adapted to the measure which they propose. The Ministers of the Crown have not failed to inform the Court of Directors, that, in consequence of the communications which they have had with the Commissioners of the Customs and Excise upon the subject, they find that the Directors have greatly over-rated the danger which they profess to entertain; and they acquaint them, that new regulations will be provided to meet the new occasion; and that the out-port ships and cargoes will be subject to forfeiture upon the discovery of any illicit articles on board. Yet the Court of Directors still persist in declaring, that the hazard of _smuggling_ is _the reason_ why they will not grant to the out-ports an import trade; and this, through a fear of compromising "the safety of the British Empire in India, and the British Constitution at home."