It is very remarkable, that in the year 1778, when the Bengal investment stood at the highest, that is, so high as 1,223,316_l._, though the Chinese trade produced an excess of gain in that year of 209,243_l._, and that no loss of moment could be added to that of Bengal, (except about 45,000_l._ on the Bombay trade,) the whole profit of a capital of 2,040,787_l._ amounted only to the sum of 9,480_l._

The detail of the articles in which loss was incurred or gain made will be found in the Appendix, No. 24.  The circumstances of the time have rendered it necessary to call up a vigorous attention to this state of the trade of the Company between Europe and India.

INTERNAL TRADE OF BENGAL.

The internal trade of Bengal has next attracted the inquiries of your Committee.

The great and valuable articles of the Company’s investment, drawn from the articles of internal trade, are raw silk, and various descriptions of piece-goods made of silk and cotton.  These articles are not under any formal monopoly; nor does the Company at present exercise a declared right of preemption with regard to them.  But it does not appear that the trade in these particulars is or can be perfectly free,—­not so much on account of any direct measures taken to prevent it as from the circumstances of the country, and the manner of carrying on business there:  for the present trade, even in these articles, is built from the ruins of old monopolies and preemptions, and necessarily partakes of the nature of its materials.

In order to show in what manner manufactures and trade so constituted contribute to the prosperity of the natives, your Committee conceives it proper to take, in this place, a short general view of the progress of the English policy with relation to the commerce of Bengal, and the several stages and gradations by which it has been brought into its actual state.  The modes of abuse, and the means by which commerce has suffered, will be considered in greater detail under the distinct heads of those objects which have chiefly suffered by them.

During the time of the Mogul government, the princes of that race, who omitted nothing for the encouragement of commerce in their dominions, bestowed very large privileges and immunities on the English East India Company, exempting them from several duties to which their natural-born subjects were liable.  The Company’s dustuck, or passport, secured to them this exemption at all the custom-houses and toll-bars of the country.  The Company, not being able or not choosing to make use of their privilege to the full extent to which it might be carried, indulged their servants with a qualified use of their passport, under which, and in the name of the Company, they carried on a private trade, either by themselves or in society with natives, and thus found a compensation for the scanty allowances made to them by their masters in England.  As the country government was at that time in the fulness of its strength, and that this immunity existed by a double connivance, it was naturally kept within tolerable limits.