Indeed, wherever the sovereign powers of peace and war are given, there wants but time and circumstance to make these powers supersede every other.

The affairs of commerce will fall at last into their proper rank and situation.

However primary in their original intention, they will become secondary.

The possession, therefore, and the power of assertion of these great authorities coinciding with the improved state of Europe, with the improved state of arts in Europe, with the improved state of laws, and, what is much more material, the improved state of military discipline, more and more perfected every day with us,--universal improvement in Europe coinciding with the general decay of Asia, (for the proud day of Asia is passed,) this improvement coinciding with the relaxation and dissolution of the Mogul government, with the decline of its warlike spirit, with the total disuse of the ancient strictness of the military discipline established by Tamerlane, the India Company came to be what it is, a great empire, carrying on, subordinately, a great commerce; it became that thing which was supposed by the Roman law irreconcilable to reason and propriety,--_eundem negotiatorem et dominum_: the same power became the general trader, the same power became the supreme lord.
In this exalted situation, the India Company, however, still preserves traces of its original mercantile character.

The whole exterior order of its political service is carried on upon a mercantile plan and mercantile principles.