They proceed:  “We do not mean,” say they, “to convey any censure on Mr. Sulivan respecting the transaction; but we cannot withhold our displeasure from the Governor-General and Council at such an instance of contempt of our authority.”  They then proceed justly to censure the removal of the inspection, and some other particulars of this gross proceeding.  As to the criminality of the parties, it is undoubtedly true that a breach of duty in servants is highly aggravated by the rank, station, and trust of the offending party; but no party, in such conspiracy to break orders, appear to us wholly free from fault.

The Directors did their duty in reprobating this contract; but it is the opinion of your Committee that further steps ought to be taken to inquire into the legal validity of a transaction which manifestly attempts to prevent the Court of Directors from applying any remedy to a grievance which has been for years the constant subject of complaints.

Both Mr. Sulivan and Mr. Hastings are the Company’s servants, bound by their covenants and their oaths to promote the interest of their masters, and both equally bound to be obedient to their orders.  If the Governor-General had contracted with a stranger, not apprised of the Company’s orders, and not bound by any previous engagement, the contract might have been good; but whether a contract made between two servants, contrary to the orders of their common master, and to the prejudice of his known interest, be a breach of trust on both sides, and whether the contract can in equity have force to bind the Company, whenever they shall be inclined to free themselves and the country they govern from this mischievous monopoly, your Committee think a subject worthy of further inquiry.

With regard to the disposal of the opium, the Directors very properly condemn the direct contraband, but they approve the trading voyage.  The Directors have observed nothing concerning the loans:  they probably reserved that matter for future consideration.

In no affair has the connection between servants abroad and persons in power among the proprietors of the India Company been more discernible than in this.  But if such confederacies, cemented by such means, are suffered to pass without due animadversion, the authority of Parliament must become as inefficacious as all other authorities have proved to restrain the growth of disorders either in India or in Europe.

SALT.

The reports made by the two committees of the House which sat in the years 1772 and 1773 of the state and conduct of the inland trade of Bengal up to that period have assisted the inquiries of your Committee with respect to the third and last article of monopoly, viz., that of salt, and made it unnecessary for them to enter into so minute a detail on that subject as they have done on some others.