Your Committee find that during the whole period which elapsed from 1773 to the commencement of 1782 disorders and abuses of every kind multiplied.  Wars contrary to policy and contrary to public faith were carrying on in various parts of India.  The allies, dependants, and subjects of the Company were everywhere oppressed;[2] dissensions in the Supreme Council prevailed, and continued for the greater part of that time; the contests between the civil and judicial powers threatened that issue to which they came at last, an armed resistance to the authority of the king’s court of justice; the orders which by an act of Parliament the servants were bound to obey were avowedly and on principle contemned; until at length the fatal effects of accumulated misdemeanors abroad and neglects at home broke out in the alarming manner which your Committee have so fully reported to this House.[3]

[Sidenote:  Proceedings in India not known to Parliament.]

In all this time the true state of the several Presidencies, and the real conduct of the British government towards the natives, was not at all known to Parliament:  it seems to have been very imperfectly known even to ministers.  Indeed, it required an unbroken attention, and much comparison of facts and reasonings, to form a true judgment on that difficult and complicated system of politics, revenue, and commerce, whilst affairs were only in their progress to that state which produced the present inquiries.  Therefore, whilst the causes of their ruin were in the height of their operation, both the Company and the natives were understood by the public as in circumstances the most assured and most flourishing; insomuch that, whenever the affairs of India were brought before Parliament, as they were two or three times during that period, the only subject-matter of discussion anywise important was concerning the sums which might be taken out of the Company’s surplus profits for the advantage of the state.  Little was thought of but the disengagement of the Company from their debts in England, and to prevent the servants abroad from drawing upon them, so as that body might be enabled, without exciting clamors here, to afford the contribution that was demanded.  All descriptions of persons, either here or in India, looking solely to appearances at home, the reputation of the Directors depended on the keeping the Company’s sales in a situation to support the dividend, that of the ministers depended on the most lucrative bargains for the Exchequer, and that of the servants abroad on the largest investments; until at length there is great reason to apprehend, that, unless some very substantial reform takes place in the management of the Company’s affairs, nothing will be left for investment, for dividend, or for bargain, and India, instead of a resource to the public, may itself come, in no great length of time, to be reckoned amongst the public burdens.

[Sidenote:  Inspection of ministers has failed in effect.]