mercantile sovereign to his trading advantages naturally relaxed the diligence of his subordinate factor-magistrates through all their gradations and in all their functions; it gave rise, at least so far as the principal was concerned, to much neglect of price and of goodness in their purchases.  If ever they showed any extraordinary degrees of accuracy and selection, it would naturally be in favor of that interest to which they could not be indifferent.  The Company might suffer above, the natives might suffer below; the intermediate party must profit to the prejudice of both.

Your Committee are of opinion that the Company is now arrived at that point, when, the investment from surplus revenue or from the spoil of war ceasing, it is become much more necessary to fix its commerce upon a commercial basis.  And this opinion led your Committee to a detailed review of all the articles of the Indian traffic upon which the profit and loss was steady; and we have chosen a period of four years, during the continuance of the revenue investment, and prior to any borrowing or any extraordinary drawing of bills, in order to find out how far the trade, under circumstances when it will be necessary to carry it on by borrowing, or by bills, or by exportation of bullion, can be sustained in the former course, so as to secure the capital and to afford a reasonable dividend.  And your Committee find that in the first four years the investment from Bengal amounted to 4,176,525_l._; upon 2,260,277_l._ there was a gain of 186,337_l._, and upon 1,916,248_l._ a loss of 705,566_l._:  so that the excess of loss above gain, upon the whole of the foregoing capital, was in the four years no less than 519,229_l._

If the trade were confined to Bengal, and the Company were to trade on those terms upon a capital borrowed at eight per cent Indian interest, their revenues in that province would be soon so overpowered with debt, that those revenues, instead of supporting the trade, would be totally destroyed by it.  If, on the other hand, the Company traded upon bills with every advantage, far from being in a condition to divide the smallest percentage, their bankruptcy here would be inevitable.

Your Committee then turned to the trade of the other factories and Presidencies, and they constantly found, that, as the power and dominion of the Company was less, their profit on the goods was greater.  The investments of Madras, Bombay, and Bencoolen have, in the foregoing four years, upon a capital of 1,151,176_l._, had a gain upon the whole of 329,622_l._ The greatest of all is that of Bencoolen, which, on a capital of 76,571_l._, produced a profit of 107,760_l._ This, however, is but a small branch of the Company’s trade.  The trade to China, on a capital of 1,717,463_l._, produced an excess of gain amounting to 874,096_l._, which is about fifty per cent.  But such was the evil influence of the Bengal investment, that not only the profits of the Chinese trade, but of all the lucrative branches taken together, were so sunk and ingulfed in it, that the whole profit on a capital of 7,045,164_l._ reached to no more than 684,489_l._, that is, to 189,607_l._ less than the profit on the Chinese trade alone,—­less than the total profits on the gainful trades taken together, 520,727_l._