1. _A right to all the ports and territories in India, possessed by the Company, of the same kind and extent as the right by which they hold their freeholds in London._--This right has been solemnly asserted for the Company, by the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Court of Directors, in these words:--"The Company are AS MUCH owners of THE CHIEF SEATS of European trade in the Indian Empire, as they are of THEIR FREEHOLDS IN LONDON[20]." This is an open and unreserved declaration of the East India Company, renewing and asserting the preceding allegations made on their behalf at the expiration of their last exclusive Charter; and the same allegation is now repeated in their Petition to Parliament, though in terms somewhat more qualified than those which they addressed to the Government; viz. "that _no person_ can have a right, except with the consent of the proprietors of India stock, _to use the seats of trade_ which the stockholders _have acquired_." But they must bring an oblivion over all the reasons of state and policy by which _they exist at all_, before they can carry in the face of the nation the proud assertion, that they stand equally circumstanced, in regard of _private right_, with respect to "_the chief seats of European commerce in the Indian Empire_," and with respect to "_their freeholds in London_." They will assuredly be told by Parliament, that they _may not_ exercise the same arbitrary authority over the chief seats of Indian commerce, which they may over their freeholds in London. With regard to their freeholds in London, they may exclude all persons from entering them, they may desert them themselves, or they may let them fall to ruin. But it is NOT SO with regard to the chief seats of Indian commerce; they will find, that they cannot arbitrarily exclude British subjects from those seats, beyond a limited time; that they cannot _debar_ the nation the beneficial use of them; and that they will not be suffered to render them unavailable, or unprofitable. As soon as the India Trade shall be thrown open, the ports of India will necessarily become open; and, if the Company should then search for _their private right to close them_, they will find, that it is merged in _the public right to use them_; or, to use the words of Lord Hale, that "their _jus privatum_ is clothed and superinduced with a _jus publicum_[21]."