Five Works.

Sammelband. In 1766, the licence granting the East India Company a monopoly over all trade 'beyond the Cape of Bona Esperanza to the Streights of Magellan' (Charter, p.20) came up for renewal. The activities of company officials like Robert Clive (1725-1774), who had acquired vast personal fortunes and jagirs in the east, caused mounting unease among MPs back at home concerned with the lack of proper parliamentary oversight. Narrowly avoiding an inquiry into the Company's affairs, an extension to the charter was granted in return for a fixed annual payment of £400,000, to be paid into government coffers, marking the approach of the 'age of intervention' which would eventually lead to the Company's disestablishment by act of Parliament in 1858.

The Charter is bound with four other works, including the first published edition of Clive's speech made before the House of Commons in 1772. Defending his office as Governor of the Bengal Presidency (1758-1760), Clive rejected allegations of corruption insisting that 'from time immemorial' the accepted practice of gift-giving 'has been the [local] custom... It begins at the Naboobs, and ends at the lowest man that has an inferior' (Pickett). The title bears the ownership inscription for William Dickinson, probably the MP for Great Marlow (1768-1774) who might well have attended Clive's speech in person.

The remaining three works are late eighteenth-century sermons. Topics include the education of children at charity schools in the City of London, the Restoration, and a sermon on the theme of 'humiliation' which was fittingly preached before the House of Commons in 1798.

Five works bound as one; small 4to (22.5 x 17.5 cm); [Charter] first edition, London, [s.n.], 1766 [i.e. 1767], half-title, woodcut device, 51, [1]pp., ESTC T145218, Pickett 762; [Clive] first edition, London, J. Walter, [n.d. 1772], ownership inscription for 'William Dickinson' in pen to title, 61, [1]pp, ESTC T41212, Pickett 877; [Porteus] first edition, London, John Rivington, 1782, lacking the annexed 110pp 'Account', iii, 24pp., ESTC T47873; [Moss] first edition, London, F. and C. Rivington, 1798, half-title, 27, [1]pp., ESTC T7339; [Hume] first edition, London, John and Paul Knapton, 1747, half-title, 27, [1]pp., ESTC T7339; contemporary half calf, gilt spine in compartments, marbled boards, a little worn. Very good.