The renewal of an _expired_ privilege cannot be pursued upon a ground of _right_. The exclusive Charter of the Company is _a patent_, and their patent, like every other patent, is limited as to _its duration_. But though the patentee cannot allege a ground of right for the renewal of his patent, he may show such strong pretensions, such good claims in equity, such weighty reasons of expediency for its renewal, as may ensure its attainment. Such are the claims and the pretensions of the East India Company to a renewal of their Charter; and as such they have been promptly and cheerfully received, both by the Government and the country at large.
But the progress of society, during a long course of years, is of a nature to produce a considerable alteration in the general state of things; the state of things must, therefore, naturally be called into consideration, upon the expiration of the term of years which determines the exclusive Charter of the East India Company; in order to inquire, whether that Charter should be renewed precisely in the same terms, and with the same conditions, as before; or whether the actual state of public affairs demands, that some alteration, some modification, of terms and conditions, should be introduced into the Charter or System which is to succeed.
The arduous task of this investigation must necessarily fall upon those persons, who chance to be in the Administration of the Country, at the latest period to which the arrangements for the renewal of the Charter can be protracted; and it is hardly possible to imagine a more difficult and perplexing position, for any Administration. Those persons, if they have any regard for the duties which they owe to the Public, will consider themselves as standing _between two interests_; the interest of those who are about to lose an exclusive right, and the interest of those who are about to acquire an open and a common one. They will be disposed to listen, patiently and impartially, to the pretensions of both parties; of those who pray for the renewal of an exclusive privilege, and of those who pray that they may not be again wholly excluded from the right which has reverted. And although they may amply allow the preference which is due to the former petitioners, yet they will endeavour to ascertain, whether the latter may not, with safety to the public interest, receive some enlargement of the benefits, which the opportunity opens to them, and from which they have been so long excluded.