In this manner the inspection of the ministers of the crown, the great cementing regulation of the whole act of 1773, has, along with all the others, entirely failed in its effect.

[Sidenote:  Failure in the act.]

Your Committee, in observing on the failure of this act, do not consider the intrinsic defects or mistakes in the law itself as the sole cause of its miscarriage.  The general policy of the nation with regard to this object has been, they conceive, erroneous; and no remedy by laws, under the prevalence of that policy, can be effectual.  Before any remedial law can have its just operation, the affairs of India must be restored to their natural order.  The prosperity of the natives must be previously secured, before any profit from them whatsoever is attempted.  For as long as a system prevails which regards the transmission of great wealth to this country, either for the Company or the state, as its principal end, so long will it be impossible that those who are the instruments of that scheme should not be actuated by the same spirit for their own private purposes.  It will be worse:  they will support the injuries done to the natives for their selfish ends by new injuries done in favor of those before whom they are to account.  It is not reasonably to be expected that a public rapacious and improvident should be served by any of its subordinates with disinterestedness or foresight.

II.—­CONNECTION OF GREAT BRITAIN WITH INDIA.

In order to open more fully the tendency of the policy which has hitherto prevailed, and that the House may be enabled, in any regulations which may be made, to follow the tracks of the abuse, and to apply an appropriated remedy to a particular distemper, your Committee think it expedient to consider in some detail the manner in which India is connected with this kingdom,—­which is the second head of their plan.

The two great links by which this connection is maintained are, first, the East India Company’s commerce, and, next, the government set over the natives by that company and by the crown.  The first of these principles of connection, namely, the East India Company’s trade, is to be first considered, not only as it operates by itself, but as having a powerful influence over the general policy and the particular measures of the Company’s government.  Your Committee apprehend that the present state, nature, and tendency of this trade are not generally understood.

[Sidenote:  Trade to India formerly carried on chiefly in silver.]