of this concern in Bengal they choose commissioners by their own authority.  By the same authority they form them into a body, they put them under rules and regulations, and they empower them also to make regulations of their own.  They remit, by the like authority, the duties to which all private trade is subject; and they charge the whole concern with seven per cent, to be paid from the net produce of the sales in England, as a recompense to the commissioners:  for this the commissioners contract to bear all the charges on the goods to the time of shipping.

The servants having formed this plan of trade, and a new commission for the conduct of it, on their private account, it is a matter of consideration to know who the commissioners are.  They turn out to be the three senior servants of the Company’s Board of Trade, who choose to take upon them to be the factors of others for large emoluments, whilst they receive salaries of two thousand pounds and fifteen hundred pounds a year from the Company.  As the Company have no other fund than the new investment from whence they are to be paid for the care of their servants’ property, this commission and those salaries being to take place of their brokerage, they in effect render it very difficult, if not impossible, for them to derive advantage from their new occupation.

As to the benefit of this plan:  besides preventing the loss which must happen from the Company’s ships returning empty to Europe, and the stopping of all trade between India and England, the authors of it state, that it will “open a new channel of remittance, and abolish the practice, by precluding the necessity, of remitting private fortunes by foreign bottoms, and that it may lead to some permanent mode for remittance of private fortunes, and of combining it with the regular provision of the Company’s investment,—­that it will yield some profit to the Company without risk, and the national gain will be the same as upon the regular trade.”

As to the combination of this mode of remittance with the Company’s investment, nothing can be affirmed concerning it until some satisfactory assurance can be held out that such an investment can ever be realized.  Mr. Hastings and the gentlemen of the Council have not afforded any ground for such an expectation.  That the Indian trade may become a permanent vehicle of the private fortunes of the Company’s servants is very probable,—­that is, as permanent as the means of acquiring fortunes in India; but that some profit will accrue to the Company is absolutely impossible.  The Company are to bear all the charge outwards, and a very great part of that homewards; and their only compensation is the surplus commission on the sale of other people’s goods.  The nation will undoubtedly avoid great loss and detriment, which would be the inevitable consequence of the total cessation of the trade with Bengal and the ships returning without cargoes.  But if this temporary expedient should be improved into a system, no occasional advantages to be derived from it would be sufficient to balance the mischiefs of finding a great Parliamentary corporation turned into a vehicle for remitting to England the private fortunes of those for whose benefit the territorial possessions in India are in effect and substance under this project to be solely held.