And can the British people _now_ fail to open their eyes, and to discern the strait to which the ancient crown and realm of England would be reduced, by submitting to acknowledge this _new estate_ in the Empire? Greatly as it would be to be lamented that any thing should disturb the present internal tranquillity of our political system, yet, if such should be the necessary result of a resistance to the ambitious views of the East India Company, it ought to be manfully and cheerfully encountered; rather than admit, by a temporizing concession, a claim which shall bend PARLIAMENT to the will of, and degrade THE CROWN to an alliance with, a Company of its own subjects; which owes its recent existence to the charters of the Crown, and the enactments of Parliament, and yet aspires to seat itself for ever, side by side, by its own supreme Government.
The Company have carried too far their confidence in the _constitutional defence_ by which they hoped to ride in triumph over the Executive Government. Their exorbitant pretensions have bred a _new constitutional question_, to which the public mind is now turning. In their solicitude to fortify themselves with _constitutional jealousies_, they have constructed a formidable fortress, which threatens to embarrass the Citadel of the State, and must therefore of necessity awaken its jealousy. A change in the Administration of the Indian Government (should the Company finally provoke such a change), _need not necessarily_ throw the patronage of India into the hands of the Crown; means are to be found, by which that political and constitutional evil may be effectually guarded against. But if, through a precipitate assumption, that no such adequate substitute can be provided for the present system, Parliament should, at this critical moment, unguardedly yield to the demands of the Company, and give its sanction to their claims to a _perpetuity_ of those privileges which they have hitherto been contented to receive _with limitation_, what difficulties would it not entail upon its own future proceedings? If the _corporate sovereignty_ of the Company is once absolutely _engrafted_ upon _the Sovereignty of the State_, it cannot be extracted without lacerating the ancient stock, and convulsing the general system.