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solemn recorded promise to abide by the judgment of the court of directors. Their judgment was declared by their resolution to prosecute, which it depended upon himself to satisfy by making good his engagement. To excuse his not complying with the Company's claims, he says, "that his compliance would be urged as a confession of delinquency, and to proceed from conviction of his having usurped on the rights of the Company." Considerations of this nature might properly have induced Mr. Barwell to stand upon his right in the first instance," and to appeal" (to use his own words) "to the laws of his country in order to vindicate his fame." But his performance could not have more weight to infer delinquency, than his promise. Your committee think his observation comes too late.

If he had stood a trial when he first acknowledged the facts, and submitted himself to the judgment of the court of directors, the suit would have been carried on under the direction of General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis; whereas in the year 1779 his influence at the board gave him the conduct of it himself. In an interval of four years it may be presumed, that great alterations might have happened in the state of the evidence against him.

In the subsequent proceedings of the governor-general and council the House will find, that Mr. Barwell complained, that his instances for carrying on the prosecution were ineffectual, owing to the legal difficulties and delays urged by the Company's law officers, which your committee do not find have yet been removed. As far as the latest advices reach, Do progress appears to have been made in the business. In July, 1782, the court of directors found it necessary to order an account of all suits against Europeans, depending in the supreme court of judicature, to be transmitted to them, and that no time should be lost in bringing them to a determin

ation.

SALTPETRE.

THE next article of direct monopoly, subservient to the Company's export, is saltpetre. This, as well as opium, is far the greater part the produce of the province of Bahar. The difference between the management and destination of the two articles has been this: until the year 1782, the opium

has been sold in the country, and the produce of the sale laid out in country merchandise for the Company's export. A great part of the saltpetre is sent out in kind, and never has contributed to the interior circulation and commerce of Bengal. It is managed by agency on the Company's account. The price paid to the manufacturer is invariable. Some of the larger undertakers receive advances to enable them to prosecute their work; but as they are not always equally careful or fortunate, it happens, that large balances accumu late against them. Orders have been sent from Calcutta from time to time to recover their balances with little or no success, but with great vexation to all concerned in the manufacture. Sometimes they have imprisoned the failing contractors in their own houses; a severity, which answers no useful purpose. Such persons are so many hands detached from the improvement, and added to the burthen, of the country. They are persons of skill drawn from the future supply of that monopoly, in favour of which they are prosecuted. In case of the death of the debtor, this rigorous demand falls upon the ruined houses of widows and orphans, and may be easily converted into a means either of cruel oppression, or a mercenary indulgence, according to the temper of the exacters.

Instead of thus having recourse to imprisonment, the old balance is sometimes deducted from the current produce. This, in these circumstances, is a grievous discouragement. People must be discouraged from entering into a business, when the commodity being fixed to one invariable standard, and confined to one market, the best success can be attended only with a limited advantage, whilst a defective produce can never be compensated by an augmented price. Accord ingly very little of these advances has been recovered; and after much vexation the pursuit has generally been abandoned. It is plain, that there can be no life and vigour in any business under a monopoly so constituted; nor can the true productive resources of the country, in so large an article of its commerce, ever come to be fully known.

The supply for the Company's demand in England has rarely fallen short of two thousand tons, nor much exceeded two thousand five hundred. A discretionary allowance of this commodity has been made to the French, Dutch, and

Danes, who purchase their allotted shares at some small advance on the Company's price. The supply destined for the London market is proportioned to the spare tonnage; and, to accommodate that tonnage, the saltpetre is sometimes sent to Madras, and sometimes even to Bombay; and that not unfrequently in vessels expressly employed for the pur

pose.

Mr. Law, chief of Patna, being examined on the effect of that monopoly, delivered his opinion, that with regard to the Company's trade the monopoly was advantageous; but as Sovereigns of the country they must be losers by it. These two capacities in the Company are found in perpetual contradiction. But much doubt may arise, whether this monopoly will be found advantageous to the Company, either in the one capacity or the other. The gross commodity, monopolized for sale in London, is procured from the revenues in Bengal; the certain is given for the hazardous. The loss of interest on the advances, sometimes the loss of the principal; the expense of carriage from Patna to Calcutta; the various loadings and unloadings, and insurance (which, though borne by the Company, is still insurance); the engagement for the ordnance, limited in price, and irregular in payment; the charge of agency, and management through all its gradations and successions; when all these are taken into consideration, it may be found, that the gain of the Company as traders will be far from compensating their loss as sovereigns. A body like the East-India Company can. scarcely, in any circumstance, hope to carry on the details of such a business, from its commencement to its conclusion, with any degree of success. In the subjoined estimate of profit and loss, the value of the commodity is stated at its invoice price at Calcutta. But this affords no just estimate of the whole effect of a dealing, where the Company's charge commences in the first rudiments of the manufacture, and not at the purchase at the place of sale and valuation; for they may be heavy losses on the value, at which the saltpetre is estimated, when shipped off on that account, without any appearance in the account; and the inquiries of your committee to find the charges on the saltpetre previous to the shipping have been fruitless.

BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN INDIA.

THE other link, by which India is bound to Great Britain, is the government established there originally by the au thority of the East-India Company, and afterwards modified by parliament by the acts of 1773 and 1780. This system of government appears to your committee to be at least as much disordered, and as much perverted from every good purpose, for which lawful rule is established, as the trading system has been from every just principle of commerce. Your committee, in tracing the causes of this disorder through its effects, have first considered the government as it is constituted and managed within itself, beginning with its most essential and fundamental part, the order and discipline by which the supreme authority of this kingdom is maintained.

The British government in India being a subordinate and delegated power, it ought to be considered as a fundamental principle in such a system, that it is to be preserved in the strictest obedience to the government at home. Adminis tration in India, at an immense distance from the seat of the supreme authority; intrusted with the most extensive pow ers; liable to the greatest temptations; possessing the amplest means of abuse; ruling over a people guarded by no distinct or well-ascertained privileges, whose language, manners, and radical prejudices render not only redress, but all complaint on their part, a matter of extreme difficulty; such an administration, it is evident, never can be made subservient to the interests of Great Britain, or even tolerable to the natives, but by the strictest rigour in exacting obedience to the commands of the authority lawfully set over it.

But your committee find, that this principle has been for some years very little attended to. Before the passing the act of 1773, the professed purpose of which was to secure a better subordination in the Company's servants, such was the firmness with which the court of directors maintee's Fifth Re- tained their authority, that they displaced Goand Appendix vernor Cartier, confessedly a meritorious servant, to that Report, for disobedience of orders; although his case was not a great deal more than a question, by whom

Vide commit

port, page 21.

No. 12.

the orders were to be obeyed. Yet the directors were so sensible of the necessity of a punctual and literal obedience, that conceiving their orders went to the parties who were to obey, as well as to the act to be done, they proceeded with a strictness, that, in all cases, except that of their peculiar government, might well be considered as rigorous. But in proportion as the necessity of enforcing obedience grew stronger and more urgent, and in proportion to the magnitude and importance of the objects affected by disobedience, this rigour has been relaxed. Acts of disobedience have not only grown frequent, but systematic; and they have appeared in such instances, and are manifested in such a manner, as to amount, in the Company's servants, to little less than absolute independence; against which, on the part of the directors, there is no struggle, and hardly so much as a protest to preserve a claim.

Before your committee proceed to offer to the House their remarks on the most distinguished of these instances, the particulars of which they have already reported, they deem it necessary to enter into some detail of a transaction equally extraordinary and important, though not yet brought into the view of parliament, which appears to have laid the foundation of the principal abuses that ensued, as well as to have given strength and encouragement to those that existed. To this transaction, and to the conclusions naturally deducible from it, your committee attribute that general spirit of disobedience and independence, which has since prevailed in the government of Bengal.

Your committee find, that in the year 1775 Mr. Lauchlan Macleane was sent into England as agent to the Nabob of Arcot and to Mr. Hastings.-The conduct of Mr. Hastings, in assisting to extirpate, for a sum of money to be paid to the Company, the innocent nation of the Rohillas, had drawn pon him the censure of the court of directors, and the nanimous censure of the court of proprietors. The former ad even resolved to prepare an application to his Majesty fr Mr. Hastings's dismission.

Another general court was called on this proceeding. Mr. Hastings was then openly supported by a majority of the urt of proprietors, who professed to entertain a good opion of his general ability and rectitude of intention, not

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