[Sidenote:  Revenue above the investment, how applied.]

[Sidenote:  Allowance to Nabob of Bengal.]

[Sidenote:  How reduced.]

But that the greatness of all these drains, and their effects, may be rendered more visible, your Committee have turned their consideration to the employment of those parts of the Bengal revenue which are not employed in the Company’s own investments for China and for Europe.  What is taken over and above the investment (when any investment can be made) from the gross revenue, either for the charge of collection or for civil and military establishments, is in time of peace two millions at the least.  From the portion of that sum which goes to the support of civil government the natives are almost wholly excluded, as they are from the principal collections of revenue.  With very few exceptions, they are only employed as servants and agents to Europeans, or in the inferior departments of collection, when it is absolutely impossible to proceed a step without their assistance.  For some time after the acquisition of the territorial revenue, the sum of 420,000_l._ a year was paid, according to the stipulation of a treaty, to the Nabob of Bengal, for the support of his government.  This sum, however inconsiderable, compared to the revenues of the province, yet, distributed through the various departments of civil administration, served in some degree to preserve the natives of the better sort, particularly those of the Mahomedan profession, from being utterly ruined.  The people of that persuasion, not being so generally engaged in trade, and not having on their conquest of Bengal divested the ancient Gentoo proprietors of their lands of inheritance, had for their chief, if not their sole support, the share of a moderate conqueror in all offices, civil and military.  But your Committee find that this arrangement was of a short duration.  Without the least regard to the subsistence of this innocent people, or to the faith of the agreement on which they were brought under the British government, this sum was reduced by a new treaty to 320,000_l._, and soon after, (upon a pretence of the present Nabob’s minority, and a temporary sequestration for the discharge of his debts,) to 160,000_l._:  but when he arrived at his majority, and when the debts were paid, (if ever they were paid,) the sequestration still continued; and so far as the late advices may be understood, the allowance to the Nabob appears still to stand at the reduced sum of 160,000_l._

[Sidenote:  Native officers.]

The other resource of the Mahomedans, and of the Gentoos of certain of the higher castes, was the army.  In this army, nine tenths of which consists of natives, no native, of whatever description, holds any rank higher than that of a Subahdar Commandant, that is, of an officer below the rank of an English subaltern, who is appointed to each company of the native soldiery.

[Sidenote:  All lucrative employments in the hands of the English.]