A calm and temperate observer, who scrupulously weighs the force and merits of this reasoning, will naturally be forced into so much scepticism as to doubt, whether there may not be some _other reasons_, besides the safety of the Empire, which may induce the East India Company to stand so firm for the condition of bringing all the import Indian trade _into the Port of London_? Whether there may not be some reasons, of a _narrower_ sphere than those of the interests of the Empire? In searching for such reasons, it will occur to him, that the Port of London is the seat of the Company's immediate and separate interests; and he will shrewdly suspect, that those interests are the _real_, while those of the Empire are made the _ostensible_, motive for so vigorous a resistance. When he reflects, _that it is proposed to leave the Company in the undisturbed possession of all the power of Government over the Indian Empire, which they have hitherto enjoyed; that they are to remain possessed, as heretofore, of the exclusive trade to China, from whence four-fifths of their commercial profit is derived_; that they themselves have virtually admitted the falsity of the theoretical mischiefs, foretold as the certain results of an out-port trade, by having agreed to concede that trade, to the extent required by Government; that they equally allow, an import trade for the merchants of the out-ports; but make their resistance upon the single point, that the import trade should be all brought together into their own warehouses, and should be disposed of in their own sales in Leadenhall Street: when he combines all these considerations, he will think that he plainly discovers, that the interests of the Empire at large are not quite so much involved in the question as they proclaim; and that, if any interests are more pressingly calculated than others, it must be their own, and not the Public's. If their interests are to be affected by the measure, let them fairly state it, and show the extent; but let them not endeavour to defend them covertly, under an artful and factious allegation of _the ruin of the British Constitution_. And if they really do apprehend that the Constitution would be endangered, let them not hazard such consequences by their own proceedings. Let them not come forward as advocates for the preservation of the Empire, if their rhetoric is to sink into a threat, of "_shutting up the great shop of the India House."_