This document is the minutes of a general meeting organised by the Mayor of Bristol on 3 April 1812. In this meeting, merchants, traders, and inhabitants of Bristol approved a committee report which argued against the monopoly on trade held by the East India Company (EIC) in India and China. Describing the EIC monopoly as “injurious to the general interests of the whole body of the British people,” the meeting called for petitions against the EIC to be presented to both Houses of Parliament. Similar petitions from other cities and groups successfully ended the EIC’s exclusive monopoly on the trade to India. The 1813 EIC Charter renewed the company’s monopoly on trade with China but ended the monopoly over the trade with India, permitting private merchants to participate in this trade.