into certain Transactions in India. 453 vation of Meer Jaffier; and the sums of money, in BOOKIV. the shape of presents, obtained at the time of that CHAP. 9. revolution. Crimes of the blackest dye, rapacity, 1773. treachery, cruelty, were charged upon the principal actors in that suspicious scene; and the punishment, even of Clive, as the first and principal delinquent, was represented as a necessary act of justice and policy. On the 10th of May, the following resolutions were moved; 1. "That all acquisitions, made under the influence of a military force, or by treaty with foreign Princes, do of right belong to the state; 2. That to appropriate acquisitions so made, to the private emolument of persons entrusted with any civil or military power of the state, is illegal; 3. That very great sums of money, and other valuable property, have been acquired in Bengal, from Princes and others of that country, by persons entrusted with the military and civil powers of the state, by means of such powers; which sums of money and valuable property have been appropriated to the private use of such persons." These resolutions were warmly adopted by the house. But when the application of them came to be made to individuals; and especially when the ruin was contemplated which that application would draw down upon Clive; compassion for the man, and the consideration of his services, blotted by offences, yet splendid and great, operated with effect in the breasts of the assembly, and put an end to the enquiry. According to the style, which the spirit of English laws renders predominant in English councils, inquiry was ostensibly rejected upon a subterfuge, of the nature of a legal shuffle; incompetence, to wit, in the reports of the Select Committee to be received as evidence. As if that were true! As if no other evidence had been to be found! the other hand, the considerations which fairly re On 454 1773. Financial State BOOKIV. commended the rejection, or at least a very great CHAP. 9. modification of the penal proceeding, were not so much as mentioned; That the punishment threatened was more grievous than the offence; that it was punishment by an ex-post-facto law, because, however contrary to the principles of right government the presents received from Meer Jaffier, and however odious to the moral sense the deception practised upon Omichund, there was no law at the time which forbid them; that the presents, how contrary soever to European morals and ideas, were perfectly correspondent to those of the country in which they were received, and to the expectations of the parties by whom they were bestowed; that the treachery to Omichund was countenanced and palliated by some of the principles and many of the admired incidents of European diplomacy; that Clive, though never inattentive to his own interests, was actuated by a sincere desire to promote the prosperity of the Company, and appears not in any instance to have sacrificed what he regarded as their interests to his own; and that it would have required an extraordinary man, which no one ought to be punished for not being, to have acted, in that most trying situation in which he was placed, with greater disinterestedness than he displayed. The inquiry into the financial and commercial state of the Company exhibited the following results. The whole of their effects and credits in England, estimated on the 1st day of March, 1773, amounted to 7,784,6897. 12s. 10d.; and the whole of their debts to 9,219,1147. 12s. 6d.; leaving a balance against the Company of 1,434,424/. 19s. 8d. The whole of their effects and credits in India, China, and St. Helena, and afloat on the sea, amounted to 6,397,2997. 10s. 6d. The whole of their debts abroad amounted of the Company. СПАР. 9. 1773. 455 to 2,032,3067.; producing a balance in their favour BOOK IV. of 4,364,9937. 10s. 6d. Deducting from this sum the balance against the Company in England, we find the whole amount of their available property no more than 2,930,568/. 10s. 10d.; so that of their capital stock of 4,200,000., 1,269,431l. 9s. 2d. was expended and gone.1 From the year 1744, the period to which in a for'mer passage is brought down the amount of the dividend paid annually to the Proprietors on the capital stock, that payment continued at eight per cent. to the year 1756, in which it was reduced to six per cent. It continued at that low amount till Christmas, 1766, when it was raised by the General Court, repugnant to the sense of the Court of Directors, to five per cent. for the next half year. On the 7th of May, 1767, it was resolved in the General Court, that for the following half year the dividend should be six and a quarter per cent. But this resolution was rescinded by act of parliament, and the dividend limited, till further permission, to ten per cent. per annum. It was continued at ten per cent. till the year commencing at Christmas, 1769, when, in pursuance of the new regulations, it was advanced to eleven per cent. The next year it rose to twelve per cent. The following year it was carried to its prescribed limits, 1 Second Report of the Committee of Secrecy in 1773. The Committee say, "They have not intended in the above account any valuation of the fortifications and buildings of the Company abroad. They can by no means agree in opinion with the Court of Directors, 'That the amount of the fortifications, &c. should be added to the annual statement.'"-Undoubtedly no effects of any party can be compared with his debts, farther than they can be disposed of for the payment of those debts; the manure which a farmer has spread upon his fields, or the hedges and ditches with which he has surrounded them, are nothing, the moment his lease is expired. The money expended in fortifications and buildings, from May 1757, was stated at nearly four millions. 2 Supra, vol. iii. p. 44. 456 Commercial Results. BOOK IV. twelve and a half per cent.; at which it continued for eighteen months, when the funds of the Company being totally exhausted, it was suddenly reduced to six per cent. per annum, by a resolution passed on the 3d of December, 1772.1 1773. In the interval between 1744 and 1772, the sales at the India House had increased from about 2,000,000/. to 3,000,000l. annually; their annual exports, including both goods and stores, had fully doubled. In the year 1751, the total amount of shipping in the service of the Company was 38,441 tons, in the year 1772 it was 61,860.2 I See the Third and Eighth Reports of the Committee of Secrecy in 1773. 2 Fifth Report of the Committee of Secrecy. BOOK V. FROM THE FIRST GREAT CHANGE IN THE CONSTITUTION OF CHAP. I. Administration of Hastings till the Time when the Parliamentary Members of the Council arrived and the Operations of the New Constitution commenced, including-arrangements for collecting the Revenue and administering Justice ostensibly as Duan-treatment of Mahomed Reza Khan and the Rajah Shitabroy-elevation of Munny Begum-destruction of the Rohillas -sale of Corah and Allahabad to the Vizirpayment refused of the Emperor's Revenue— Financial results. 1772. By the new parliamentary authority, Mr. Hastings BOOK V. was appointed Governor General, and General Cla- CHAP. 1. vering, Colonel Monson, Mr. Barwel, and Mr. Francis, the members of council; not removable, except by the King, upon representation made by the Court of Directors, during the period assigned in the act. Mr. Hastings had ascended with reputation through the several stages of the Company's service; possessed the rank of a member of council at the time of Mr. Vansittart's administration, and generally concurred |