On the other hand, several of the precautions inserted in this contract, and repeated in all the subsequent, strongly indicated the evils against which it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to guard a monopoly of this nature and in that country.  For in the first contract entered into with the two natives it was strictly forbidden to compel the tenants to the cultivation of this drug.  Indeed, very shocking rumors had gone abroad, and they were aggravated by an opinion universally prevalent, that, even in the season immediately following that dreadful famine which swept off one third of the inhabitants of Bengal, several of the poorer farmers were compelled to plough up the fields they had sown with grain in order to plant them with poppies for the benefit of the engrossers of opium.  This opinion grew into a strong presumption, when it was seen that in the next year the produce of opium (contrary to what might be naturally expected in a year following such a dearth) was nearly doubled.  It is true, that, when the quantity of land necessary for the production of the largest quantity of opium is considered, it is not just to attribute that famine to these practices, nor to any that were or could be used; yet, where such practices did prevail, they must have been very oppressive to individuals, extremely insulting to the feelings of the people, and must tend to bring great and deserved discredit on the British government.  The English are a people who appear in India as a conquering nation; all dealing with them is therefore, more or less, a dealing with power.  It is such when they trade on a private account; and it is much more so in any authorized monopoly, where the hand of government, which ought never to appear but to protect, is felt as the instrument in every act of oppression.  Abuses must exist in a trade and a revenue so constituted, and there is no effectual cure for them but to entirely cut off their cause.

Things continued in this train, until the great revolution in the Company’s government was wrought by the Regulating Act of the thirteenth of the king.  In 1775 the new Council-General appointed by the act took this troublesome business again into consideration.  General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis expressed such strong doubts of the propriety of this and of all other monopolies, that the Directors, in their letter of the year following, left the Council at liberty to throw the trade open, under a duty, if they should find it practicable.  But General Clavering, who most severely censured monopoly in general, thought that this monopoly ought to be retained,—­but for a reason which shows his opinion of the wretched state of the country:  for he supposed it impossible, with the power and influence which must attend British subjects in all their transactions, that monopoly could be avoided; and he preferred an avowed monopoly, which brought benefit to government, to a virtual engrossing, attended with profit only to individuals.  But in this opinion he did not seem to be joined by Mr. Francis, who thought the suppression of this and of all monopolies to be practicable, and strongly recommended their abolition in a plan sent to the Court of Directors the year following.[6]