Your Committee here would be understood to state the ordinary establishment:  for the war may have made some alteration.  All the honorable, all the lucrative situations of the army, all the supplies and contracts of whatever species that belong to it, are solely in the hands of the English; so that whatever is beyond the mere subsistence of a common soldier and some officers of a lower rank, together with the immediate expenses of the English officers at their table, is sooner or later, in one shape or another, sent out of the country.

Such was the state of Bengal even in time of profound peace, and before the whole weight of the public charge fell upon that unhappy country for the support of other parts of India, which have been desolated in such a manner as to contribute little or nothing to their own protection.

[Sidenote:  Former state of trade.]

Your Committee have given this short comparative account of the effects of the maritime traffic of Bengal, when in its natural state, and as it has stood since the prevalence of the system of an investment from the revenues.  But before the formation of that system Bengal did by no means depend for its resources on its maritime commerce.  The inland trade, from whence it derived a very great supply of silver and gold and many kinds of merchantable goods, was very considerable.  The higher provinces of the Mogul Empire were then populous and opulent, and intercourse to an immense amount was carried on between them and Bengal.  A great trade also passed through these provinces from all the countries on the frontier of Persia, and the frontier provinces of Tartary, as well as from Surat and Baroach on the western side of India.  These parts opened to Bengal a communication with the Persian Gulf and with the Red Sea, and through them with the whole Turkish and the maritime parts of the Persian Empire, besides the commercial intercourse which it maintained with those and many other countries through its own seaports.

[Sidenote:  And the trade to Turkey.]

During that period the remittances to the Mogul’s treasury from Bengal were never very large, at least for any considerable time, nor very regularly sent; and the impositions of the state were soon repaid with interest through the medium of a lucrative commerce.  But the disorders of Persia, since the death of Kouli Khan, have wholly destroyed the trade of that country; and the trade to Turkey, by Jidda and Bussorah, which was the greatest and perhaps best branch of the Indian trade, is very much diminished.  The fall of the throne of the Mogul emperors has drawn with it that of the great marts of Agra and Delhi.  The utmost confusion of the northwestern provinces followed this revolution, which was not absolutely complete until it received the last hand from Great Britain.  Still greater calamities have fallen upon the fine provinces of Rohilcund and Oude, and on the countries of Corah and Allahabad.  By the operations of the British arms and influence, they are in many places turned to mere deserts, or so reduced and decayed as to afford very few materials or means of commerce.