not always equally careful or fortunate, it happens that large balances accumulate against them.  Orders have been sent from Calcutta from time to time to recover their balances, with little or no success, but with great vexation to all concerned in the manufacture.  Sometimes they have imprisoned the failing contractors in their own houses,—­a severity which answers no useful purpose.  Such persons are so many hands detached from the improvement and added to the burden of the country.  They are persons of skill drawn from the future supply of that monopoly in favor of which they are prosecuted.  In case of the death of the debtor, this rigorous demand falls upon the ruined houses of widows and orphans, and may be easily converted into a means either of cruel oppression or a mercenary indulgence, according to the temper of the exactors.  Instead of thus having recourse to imprisonment, the old balance is sometimes deducted from the current produce.  This, in these circumstances, is a grievous discouragement.  People must be discouraged from entering into a business, when, the commodity being fixed to one invariable standard and confined to one market, the best success can be attended only with a limited advantage, whilst a defective produce can never be compensated by an augmented price.  Accordingly, very little of these advances has been recovered, and after much vexation the pursuit has generally been abandoned.  It is plain that there can be no life and vigor in any business under a monopoly so constituted; nor can the true productive resources of the country, in so large an article of its commerce, ever come to be fully known.

The supply for the Company’s demand in England has rarely fallen short of two thousand tons, nor much exceeded two thousand five hundred.  A discretionary allowance of this commodity has been made to the French, Dutch, and Danes, who purchase their allotted shares at some small advance on the Company’s price.  The supply destined for the London market is proportioned to the spare tonnage; and to accommodate that tonnage, the saltpetre is sometimes sent to Madras and sometimes even to Bombay, and that not unfrequently in vessels expressly employed for the purpose.

Mr. Law, Chief of Patna, being examined on the effect of that monopoly, delivered his opinion, that with regard to the Company’s trade the monopoly was advantageous, but as sovereigns of the country they must be losers by it.  These two capacities in the Company are found in perpetual contradiction.  But much doubt may arise whether this monopoly will be found advantageous to the Company either in the one capacity or the other.  The gross commodity monopolized for sale in London is procured from the revenues in Bengal; the certain is given for the hazardous.  The loss of interest on the advances, sometimes the loss of the principal,—­the expense of carriage from Patna to Calcutta,—­the various loadings and unloadings, and insurance (which, though borne