this plan it appears that the subscription, even in idea
or pretence, is not for the use of the Company, but that the subscribers
are united into a sort of society for the remitting their _private
fortunes_: the goods, indeed, are said to be _shipped on the Company's
account_, and they are directed to be sold on the same account, and at
the usual periods of sales; but, after the payment of duties, and such
other allowances as they choose to make, in the eleventh article they
provide "that _the remainder of the sales shall revert to the
subscribers_, and be declared to be _their property_, and divided in
proportion to _their_ respective shares." The compensation which they
allow in this plan to their masters for their brokerage is, that, if,
after deducting all the charges which they impose, "the amount of the
sales _should be found_ to exceed two shillings and twopence for the
current rupee of the invoice account, it shall be taken by the Company."
For the management of this concern in Bengal they choose commissioners
by their own authority. By the same authority they form them into a
body, they put them under rules and regulations, and they empower them
also to make regulations of their own. They remit, by the like
authority, the duties to which all private trade is subject; and they
charge the whole concern with seven per cent, to be paid from the net
produce of the sales in England, as a recompense to the commissioners:
for this the commissioners contract to bear all the charges on the goods
to the time of shipping.

The servants having formed this plan of trade, and a new commission for
the conduct of it, on their private account, it is a matter of
consideration to know who the commissioners are. They turn out to be the
three senior servants of the Company's Board of Trade, who choose to
take upon them to be the factors of others for large emoluments, whilst
they receive salaries of two thousand pounds and fifteen hundred pounds
a year from the Company. As the Company have no other fund than the new
investment from whence they are to be paid for the care of their
servants' property, this commission and those salaries being to take
place of their brokerage, they in effect render it very difficult, if
not impossible, for them to derive advantage from their new occupation.

As to the benefit of this _plan_: besides preventing the loss which must
happen from the Company's ships returning empty to Europe, and the
stopp