* * * * *

Since the closing of the above Report, many material papers have arrived from India, and have been laid before your Committee.  That which they think it most immediately necessary to annex to the Appendix to this Report is the resolution of the Council-General to allow to the members of the Board of Trade resident in Calcutta a charge of five per cent on the sale in England of the investment formed upon their second plan, namely, that plan which had been communicated to Lord Macartney.  The investment on this plan is stated to be raised from 800,000_l._ to 1,000,000_l._ sterling.

It is on all accounts a very memorable transaction, and tends to bring on a heavy burden, operating in the nature of a tax laid by their own authority on the goods of their masters in England.  If such a compensation to the Board of Trade was necessary on account of their engagement to take no further (that is to say, no unlawful) emolument, it implies that the practice of making such unlawful emolument had formerly existed; and your Committee think it very extraordinary that the first notice the Company had received of such a practice should be in taxing them for a compensation for a partial abolition of it, secured on the parole of honor of those very persons who are supposed to have been guilty of this unjustifiable conduct.  Your Committee consider this engagement, if kept, as only a partial abolition of the implied corrupt practice:  because no part of the compensation is given to the members of the Board of Trade who reside at the several factories, though their means of abuse are without all comparison greater; and if the corruption was supposed so extensive as to be bought off at that price where the means were fewer, the House will judge how far the tax has purchased off the evil.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] See the Secret Committee’s Reports on the Mahratta War.

[2] Vide Secret Committee Reports.

[3] Vide Select Committee Reports, 1781

[4] The sale, to the amount of about one hundred thousand pounds annually, of the export from Great Britain ought to be deducted from this million.

[5] Estimate of the Sale Amount and Net Proceeds in England of the Cargoes to be sent from Bengal, agreeable to the Plan received by Letter dated the 8th April, 1782.

This calculation supposes the eighty lac investments will be equal to the tonnage of five ships.

[B] 2.  To custom L320,000 |[A] 1.  By sale amount of
[C] 3. " freight 200,000 | piece-goods and
[D] 4. " 5 per cent duty on | raw silk L1,300,000
          L1,300,000 65,000 | Discount 61/2 per
[E] 5. " 2 do. warehouse | cent allowed the
          room do. 26,000 | buyers 84,500
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