In this estimate, we see, as I have just observed, the Nabob’s farms rated so high as 570,000_l._ Hitherto all is well:  but follow on to the effective net revenue; there the illusion vanishes; and you will not find nearly so much as half the produce.  It is with reason, therefore, Lord Macartney invariably, throughout the whole correspondence, qualifies all his views and expectations of revenue, and all his plans for its application, with this indispensable condition, that the management is not in the hands of the Nabob of Arcot.  Should that fatal measure take place, he has over and over again told you that he has no prospect of realizing anything whatsoever for any public purpose.  With these weighty declarations, confirmed by such a state of indisputable fact before them, what has been done by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his accomplices?  Shall I be believed?  They have delivered over those very territories, on the keeping of which in the hands of the committee the defence of our dominions, and, what was more dear to them, possibly, their own job, depended,—­they have delivered back again, without condition, without arrangement, without stipulation of any sort for the natives of any rank, the whole of those vast countries, to many of which he had no just claim, into the ruinous mismanagement of the Nabob of Arcot.  To crown all, according to their miserable practice, whenever they do anything transcendently absurd, they preface this their abdication of their trust by a solemn declaration that they were not obliged to it by any principle of policy or any demand of justice whatsoever.

I have stated to you the estimated produce of the territories of the Carnatic in a condition to be farmed in 1782, according to the different managements into which they might fall; and this estimate the ministers have thought proper to suppress.  Since that, two other accounts have been received.  The first informs us, that there has been a recovery of what is called arrear, as well as of an improvement of the revenue of one of the six provinces which were let in 1782.[43] It was brought about by making a new war.  After some sharp actions, by the resolution and skill of Colonel Fullarton several of the petty princes of the most southerly of the unwasted provinces were compelled to pay very heavy rents and tributes, who for a long time before had not paid any acknowledgment.  After this reduction, by the care of Mr. Irwin, one of the committee, that province was divided into twelve farms.  This operation raised the income of that particular province; the others remain as they were first farmed.  So that, instead of producing only their original rent of 480,000_l._, they netted, in about two years and a quarter, 1,320,000_l._ sterling, which would be about 660,000_l._ a year, if the recovered arrear was not included.  What deduction is to be made on account of that arrear I cannot determine, but certainly what would reduce the annual income considerably below the rate I have allowed.