Excerpt from Second and Third Reports From the Select Committee Appointed to Consider of the Means of Improving and Maintaining the Foreign Trade of the Country, 1821

With respect to the admission to the minor ports of the continent of India, the design of that restriction was, to prevent the access of vessels to places where there was no British authority on the spot, to prevent the irregularities that might ensue, there may he still some danger of this kind, but I do not hold it to be of great importance, nor do I think the Company attach any great importance to it.

Upon this subject of Special Licences, Your Committee have been in formed, that during the discussions in which they have been engaged, and subsequently to the reception of the evidence of Mr. Rickards on this sub jcet, which will be found in their minutes, the Court of Directors of the East India Company have come to a resolution, to comply with all the applications for special licences which were then pending before them, or before the Board of Commissioners. This resolution originated in the conviction, sanctioned by the Opinion of the most eminent lawyers, that under a fair construction of the several Acts, British vessels trading under the ordinary licence to one or more of the principal settlements in India, and having completed that outward voyage, may remain in India, with the right to carry on trade from port to port in India, (including the minor ports, ) or any other trade within, as well as without, the limits of the Charter or may take in a homeward cargo, as well ata minor port as at a principal settlement. The rights of the British traders, independent of a licence, being thus extensive, the Court of Directors have acted with a praiseworthy liberality, in not withholding from them the only additional facility, which, under the Acts, they might have refused to grant. Your Committee trust, that special licences for permission to proceed from a port of the United Kingdom to any port of India other than a principal settlement, will henceforward be granted in all instances in which they are desired.

Your Committee, however, think it right to observe, that objection has been made to the admission of British ships into the coasting trade of India, grounded upon the injury which may thereby be sustained by the India-built ships, which are not admitted into the coasting trade of this country, and have not the privileges of general trade belonging to British vessels.

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