Failure in Your committee, in observing on the the act. failure of this act, do not consider the intrinsick defects or mistakes in the law itself, as the sole cause of its miscarriage. The general policy of the nation with regard to this object has been, they conceive, erroneous; and no remedy by laws under the prevalence of that policy can be effectual. Before any remedial law can have its just operation, the affairs of India must be restored to their natural order. The prosperity of the natives must be previously secured, before any profit from them whatsoever is attempted. For as long as a system prevails, which regards the transmission of great wealth to this country, either for the company or the state, as its principal end, so long will it be impossible, that those, who are the instruments of that scheme, should not be actuated by the same spirit for their own private purposes. It will be worse: they will support the injuries done to the natives for their selfish ends by new injuries done in favour of those, before whom they are to account. It is not reasonably to be expected, that a publick, rapacious and improvident, should be served by any of its subordinates with disinterestedness or foresight.

II-CONNEXION OF GREAT BRITAIN WITH INDIA.

In order to open more fully the tendency of the policy, which has hitherto prevailed, and that the house may be enabled in any regulations, which may be made, to follow the tracks of the abuse, and to apply an appropriated remedy to a particular distemper; your committee think it expedient to consider, in some detail, the manner in which India is connected with this kingdom; which is the second head of their plan.

The two great links, by which this connexion is maintained, are, first, the East India company's commerce; and next, the government set over the natives by that company, and by the Crown. The first of these principles of connexion, namely, the East India company's trade, is to be first considered, not only as it operates by itself, but as having a powerful influence over the general policy and the particular measures of the company's government. Your committee apprehend, that the present state, nature, and tendency of this trade, are not generally understood.

Trade to India

Until the acquisition of great terriformerly car- torial revenues by the East India comried on chiefly pany, the trade with India was carried on upon the common principles of

in silver.

commerce, namely, by sending out such commodities as found a demand in the India market, and, where that demand was not adequate to the reciprocal call of the European market for Indian goods, by a large annual exportation of treasure, chiefly in silver. In some years that export has been as high as six hundred and eighty thousand pounds. sterling. The other European companies, trading to India, traded thither on the same footing. Their export of bullion was probably larger in proportion to the total of their commerce; as their commerce itself bore a much larger proportion to the British than it does at this time, or has done for many years past. But stating it to be equal to the British, the whole of the silver sent annually from Europe into Hindostan could not fall very short of twelve or thirteen hundred thousand pounds a year. This influx of money, poured into India by an emulation of all the commercial nations of Europe, encouraged industry, and promoted cultivation in a high degree, notwithstanding the frequent wars, with which that country was harassed, and the vices which existed in its internal government. On the other hand, the export of so much silver was sometimes a subject of grudging and uneasiness in Europe; and a commerce, carried on through such a medium, to many appeared in speculation of doubtful advantage. But the practical demands of commerce bore down those speculative objections. The East India commodities were so essential for animating all other branches of trade, and for completing the commercial circle, that all nations contended for it with the greatest avidity. The English company flourished under this exportation for a very long series of years. The nation was considerably benefited both in trade and in revenue; and the dividends of the proprietors were often high, and always sufficient to keep up the credit of the company's stock in heart and vigour.

How trade

since.

But at, or very soon after, the acquisition of the territorial revenues to carried on the English company, the period of which may be reckoned as completed about the year 1765, a very great revolution took place in commerce as well as in dominion; and it was a revolution, which affected the trade of Hindostan with all other European nations, as well as with that, in whose favour and by whose power it was accomplished. From that time bullion was no longer regularly exported by the English East India company to Bengal, or any part of Hindostan ; and it was soon exported in much smaller quantities by any other nation. A new way of supplying the market of Europe, by means of the British power and influence, was invented; a species of trade, (if such it may be called,) by which it is absolutely impossible that India should not be radically and irretrievably ruined, although our possessions there were to be ordered and governed upon principles diametrically opposite to those, which now prevail in the system and practice of the British company's administration.

A certain portion of the revenues of Bengal has been, for many years,

Investments.

dreadful beyond all example, the investment, by a variety of successive expedients, many of them of the most dangerous nature and tendency, was forcibly kept up; and even in that forced and unnatural state it gathered strength almost every year. The debts contracted in the infancy of the system were gradually reduced; and the advances to contractors and manufacturers were regularly made; so that the goods from Bengal, purchased from the territorial revenues, from the sale of European goods, and from the produce of the monopolies, for the four years, which ended with 1780, (when the investment from the surplus revenues finally closed,) were never less than a million sterling, and commonly nearer twelve hundred thousand pounds. This million is the lowest value of the goods sent to Europe, for which no satisfaction is made.*

Remittances from Bengal to China, and the presidencies.

About an hundred thousand pounds a year is also remitted from Bengal, on the company's account, to China; and the whole of the product of that money flows into the direct trade from China to Europe. Besides this, Bengal sends a regular supply, in time of peace, to those presidencies, which are unequal to their own establishment. To Bombay the remittance in money, bills, or goods, for none of which there is a return, amounts to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds a year at a medium.

Exports from

India.

The goods, which are exported from England to Europe to India, consist chiefly of military and naval stores, of clothing for troops, and of other objects for the consumption of the Europeans residing there; and, excepting some lead, copper utensils, and sheet copper, woollen cloth, and other commodities of little comparative value, no sort of merchandise is sent from England, that is in demand for the wants or desires of the native inhabitants.

Bad effects of When an account is taken of the investment. intercourse (for it is not commerce) which is carried on between Bengal and England, the pernicious effects of the system of investment from Revenue will appear in the strongest point of view. In that view, the whole exported produce of the country (so far as the company is concerned) is not exchanged in the course of barter; but is taken away without any return or payment whatsoever. In a commercial light, therefore, England becomes annually bankrupt to Bengal to the amount nearly of its own dealing; or rather the country has suffered, what is tantamount to an annual plunder of its manufactures and its produce, to the value of twelve hundred thousand pounds.

Foreign com- In time of peace, three foreign companies. panies appear at first sight to bring their contribution of trade to the supply of this continual drain. These are the companies of France, Holland, and Denmark. But when the Consequences object is considered more nearly, inof their trade. stead of relief, these companies, who

The sale, to the amount of about one hundred thousand

from their want of authority in the country might seem to trade upon a principle merely commercial, will be found to add their full proportion to the calamity brought upon Bengal by the destructive system of the ruling power; because the greater part of the capital of all these companies, and perhaps the whole capital of some of them, is furnished, exactly as the British is, out of the revenues of the country. The civil and military servants of the English East India company being restricted in drawing bills upon Europe, and none of them ever making or proposing an establishment in India, a very great part of their fortunes, well or ill gotten, is in all probability thrown, as fast as required, into the cash of these companies. In all other countries the revenue, following the natural course and order of things, arises out of their commerce. Here, by a mischievous inversion of that order, the whole foreign maritime trade, whether English, French, Dutch, or Danish, arises from the revenues; and these are carried out of the country, without producing any thing to compensate so heavy a loss.

ments.

Your committee have not been able Foreign comto discover the entire value of the in- panies investvestment made by foreign companies. But as the investment which the English East India company derived from its revenues, and even from its public credit, is for the year 1783 to be wholly stopped, it has been proposed to private persons to make a subscription for an investment on their own account. This investment is to be equal to the sum of £.800,000. Another loan has been also made for an investment on the company's account to China of £.200,000. This makes a million; and there is no question that much more could be readily had for bills upon Europe. Now, as there is no doubt, that the whole of the money remitted is the property of British subjects, (none else having any interest in remitting to Europe,) it is not unfair to suppose, that a very great part, if not the whole, of what may find its way this new channel, is not newly created; but only diverted from those channels in which it formerly ran, that is, the cash of the foreign trading companies.

into

Besides the investment made in of the silver goods by foreign companies from the sent to China. funds of British subjects, these subjects have been for some time in the practice of sending very great sums in gold and silver directly to China on their own account. In a memorial presented to the governour-general and council, in March 1782, it appears, that the principal money lent by British subjects to one company of merchants in China then amounted to seven millions of dollars, about one million seven hundred thousand pounds sterling; and not the smallest particle of silver sent to China ever returns to India. It is not easy to determine in what proportions this enormous sum of money has been sent from Madras, or from Bengal, but it equally exhausts a country belong

pounds annually, of the export from Great Britain, ought to be deducted from this million.

Revenue

vestment.

Allowance to

gal.

But that the greatness of all these above the in- drains, and their effects, may be renenhow applied. dered more visible, your committee have turned their consideration to the employment of those parts of the Bengal revenue, which are not employed in the company's own investments for China and for Europe. What is taken over and above the investment (when an investment can be made) from the gross revenue, either for the charge of collection, or for civil and military establishments, is in time of peace two millions at the least. From the portion of that sum, which goes to the support of civil government, the natives are almost wholly excluded, as they are from the principal collections of revenue. With very few exceptions, they are only employed as servants and agents to Europeans, or in the inferiour departments of collection, when it is absolutely impossible to proceed a step without their assistance. For some time after the acquisition of the territorial revenue, the sum of four hundred and twenty nabob of Ben- thousand pounds a year was paid, according to the stipulation of a treaty, to the nabob of Bengal for the support of his government. This sum, however inconsiderable compared to the revenues of the province, yet distributed through the various departments of civil administration, served in some degree to preserve the natives of the better sort, particularly those of the Mahomedan profession, from being utterly ruined. The people of that persuasion not being so generally engaged in trade, and not having on their conquest of Bengal divested the ancient Gentû proprietors of their lands of inheritance, had for their chief, if not their sole, support the share of a moderate conqueror in all offices civil and military. But your committee find, that this arrangement was of a short duration. Without the least regard to the subsistence of this innocent people, or to the faith of the agreement on which they were brought under the British How reduced. government, this sum was reduced by a new treaty to £.320,000; and soon after, (upon a pretence of the present nabob's minority, and a temporary sequestration for the discharge of his debts,) to £.160,000: but when he arrived at his majority, and when the debts were paid, the sequestration still continued. And, so far as the late advices may be understood, the allowance to the nabob appears still to stand at the reduced sum of £.160,000.

The other resource of the MahomeNative officers. dans, and of the Gentûs of certain of the higher casts, was the army. In this army, nine tenths of which consist of natives, no native, of whatever description, holds any rank higher than that of a subadar commandant, that is, of an officer below the rank of an English subaltern, who is appointed to each company of the native soldiery. All lucrative Your committee here would be unemployments in the bands of derstood to state the ordinary estathe English. blishment, for the war may have made

Such was the state of Bengal even in time of profound peace, and before the whole weight of the publick charge fell upon that unhappy country for the support of other parts of India, which had been desolated in such a manner as to contribute little or nothing to their own protection.

of trade.

Your committee have given this Former state short comparative account of the effects of the maritime traffick of Bengal when in its natural state, and as it has stood since the prevalence of the system of an investment from the revenues. But before the formation of that system, Bengal did by no means depend for its resources on its maritime commerce. The inland trade, from whence it derived a very great supply of silver and gold, and many kinds of merchantable goods, was very considerable.—The higher provinces of the Mogul empire were then populous and opulent, and intercourse to an immense amount was carried on between them and Bengal. A great trade also passed through these provinces from all the countries on the frontier of Persia, and the frontier provinces of Tartary, as well as from Surat and Baroach on the western side of India. These parts opened to Bengal a communication with the Persian gulf and with the Red sea, and through them with the whole Turkish, and the maritime parts of the Persian empire, besides the commercial intercourse, which it maintained with those and many other countries through its own sea-ports.

During that period the remittances to the Mogul's treasury from Bengal were never very large, at least for any considerable time; nor very regularly sent; and the impositions of the state were soon repaid with interest through the medium of a lucrative commerce. But the disorders of Persia, since the death of Kouli Khân, have wholly destroyed. the trade of that country; and the trade to Turkey, by Judda and Bussorah, And the trade which was the greatest, and perhaps to Turkey. the best branch of the Indian trade, is very much diminished. The fall of the throne of the Mogul emperours has drawn with it that of the great marts of Agra and Delhi. The utmost confusion of the north-western provinces followed this revolution, which was not absolutely complete until it received the last hand from Great Britain. greater calamities have fallen upon the fine provinces of Rohilcund and Oude, and on the countries of Corah and Allahabad. By the operations of the British arms and influence, they are in many places turned to mere deserts, or so reduced

Still

and decayed as to afford very few materials, or means of commerce.

State of trade Such is the actual condition of the in Carnatic. trade of Bengal since the establishment of the British power there. The commerce of the Carnatic, as far as the enquiries of your committee have extended, did not appear with a better aspect, even before the invasion of Hyder Ali Khân, and the consequent desolation, which for many years to come must exclude it from any considerable part of the trading system.

It appears on the examination of an intelligent person concerned in trade, and who resided at Madras for several years, that on his arrival there, which was in the year 1767, that city was in a flourishing condition, and one of the first marts in India; but when he left it in 1779 there was little or no trade remaining, and but one ship belonging to the whole place. The evidence of this gentleman purports, that at his first acquaintance with the Carnatic it was a well cultivated and populous country, and as such consumed many articles of merchandise; that at his departure he left it much circumscribed in trade, greatly in the decline as to population and culture, and with a correspondent decay of the territorial revenue.

Your committee find, that there has also been from Madras an investment on the company's account, taking one year with another, very nearly on the same principles, and with the same effects, as that from Bengal; and they think it is highly probable, that, besides the large sums remitted directly from Madras to China, there has likewise been a great deal on a private account, for that and other countries, invested in the cash of foreign and European powers trading on the coast of Coromandel. But your committee have not extended their enquiries relative to the commerce of the countries dependent on Madras so far as they have done with regard to Bengal. They have reason to apprehend, that the condition is rather worse; but if the house requires a more minute examination of this important subject, your committee is willing to enter into it without delay.

for a very long duration. For a while the company's servants kept up this investment, not by improving commerce, manufactures, or agriculture, but by forcibly raising the land-rents on the principles and in the manner hereafter to be described. When these extortions disappointed, or threatened to disappoint, expectation, in order to purvey for the avarice which raged in England, they sought for expedients in breaches of all the agreements, by which they were bound by any payment to the country powers, and in exciting disturbances among all the neighbouring princes. Stimulating their ambition, and fomenting their mutual animosities, they sold to them reciprocally their common servitude and ruin.

66

The governour-general, Mr. Hastings, and the council, tell the directors, "that the supply for "the investment has arisen from casual and ex"traordinary resources, which they could not expect always to command." In an earlier minute he expresses himself still more distinctly; he says, "If the internal resources of a state fail it, or "are not equal to its occasional wants, whence can "it obtain immediate relief but from external "means?" Indeed, the investment has not been for any long time the natural product of the revenue of Bengal: when by the vast charge, and by the ill return of an evil political and military traffick, and by a prodigal encrease of establishments, and a profuse conduct in distributing agencies and contracts, they found themselves under difficulties, instead of being cured of their immoral and impolitick delusion, they plunged deeper into it, and were drawn from expedient to expedient for the supply of the investment into that endless chain of wars, which this house, by its resolutions, has so justly condemned. At home these measures were sometimes countenanced, sometimes winked at, sometimes censured, but always with an acceptance of whatever profit they afforded.

At length the funds for the investment, and for these wars together, could no longer be supplied. In the year 1778, the provision for the investment from the revenues, and from the monopolies, stood very high. It was estimated at a million four hundred thousand pounds; and of this it appears, that a great deal was realized. But this was the

COMPANY.

HITHERTO, your committee has considered this system of revenue investment, substituted in the place of a commercial link between India and Europe, so far as it affects India only: they are now to consider it as it affects the company. So long as that corporation continued to receive a vast quantity of merchantable goods without any disbursement for the purchase, so long it possessed wherewithal to continue a dividend to pay debts, and to contribute to the state. But it must have been always evident to considerate persons, that this vast extraction of wealth from a country, lessening in its resources in proportion to the encrease of its burthens, was not calculated

they announce its probable decline; and that such extensive supplies could not be continued. The advances to the board of trade became less punctual, and many disputes arose about the time of making them. However, knowing that all their credit at home depended on the investment, or upon an opinion of its magnitude, whilst they repeat their warning of a probable deficiency, and that their "finances bore an unfavourable aspect," in the year 1779 they rate the investment still higher. But their payments becoming less and less regular, and the war carrying away all the supplies, at length Mr. Hastings, in December 1780, denounced sentence of approaching dissolution to this system, and tells the directors, that "He bore too high a re

spect for their characters to treat them with the