The Court of Directors were perfectly right in showing themselves tenacious of this regulation,—­not so much to secure the best practicable revenue from their monopoly whilst it existed, but for a much more essential reason, that is, from the corrective which this method administered to that monopoly itself:  it prevented the British contractor from becoming doubly terrible to the natives, when they should see that his contract was in effect a grant, and therefore indicated particular favor and private influence with the ruling members of an absolute government.

On the expiration of Mr. Mackenzie’s term, and but a few months after Mr. Sulivan’s arrival, the Governor-General, as if the contract was a matter of patronage, and not of dealing, pitched upon Mr. Sulivan as the most proper person for the management of this critical concern.  Mr. Sulivan, though a perfect stranger to Bengal, and to that sort and to all sorts of local commerce, made no difficulty of accepting it.  The Governor-General was so fearful that his true motives in this business should be mistaken, or that the smallest suspicion should arise of his attending to the Company’s orders, that, far from putting up the contract (which, on account of its known profits, had become the object of such pursuit) to public auction, he did not wait for receiving so much as a private proposal from Mr. Sulivan.  The Secretary perceived that in the rough draught of the contract the old recital of a proposal to the board was inserted as a matter of course, but was contrary to the fact; he therefore remarked it to Mr. Hastings.  Mr. Hastings, with great indifference, ordered that recital to be omitted; and the omission, with the remark that led to it, has, with the same easy indifference, been sent over to his masters.

The Governor-General and Council declare themselves apprehensive that Mr. Sulivan might be a loser by his bargain, upon account of troubles which they supposed existing in the country which was the object of it.  This was the more indulgent, because the contractor was tolerably secured against all losses.  He received a certain price for his commodity; but he was not obliged to pay any certain price to the cultivator, who, having no other market than his, must sell it to him at his own terms.  He was to receive half the yearly payment by advance, and he was not obliged to advance to the cultivator more than what he thought expedient; but if this should not be enough, he might, if he pleased, draw the whole payment before the total delivery:  such were the terms of the engagement with him.  He is a contractor of a new species, who employs no capital whatsoever of his own, and has the market of compulsion at his entire command.  But all these securities were not sufficient for the anxious attention of the Supreme Council to Mr. Sulivan’s welfare:  Mr. Hastings had before given him the contract without any proposal on his part; and to make their gift perfect, in a second instance they proceed a step beyond their former ill precedent, and they contract with Mr. Sulivan for four years.