_l._ reached to no more than 684,489_l._, that is, to
189,607_l._ less than the profit on the Chinese trade alone,--less than
the total profits on the gainful trades taken together, 520,727_l._

It is very remarkable, that in the year 1778, when the Bengal investment
stood at the highest, that is, so high as 1,223,316_l._, though the
Chinese trade produced an excess of gain in that year of 209,243_l._,
and that no loss of moment could be added to that of Bengal, (except
about 45,000_l._ on the Bombay trade,) the whole profit of a capital of
2,040,787_l._ amounted only to the sum of 9,480_l._

The detail of the articles in which loss was incurred or gain made will
be found in the Appendix, No. 24. The circumstances of the time have
rendered it necessary to call up a vigorous attention to this state of
the trade of the Company between Europe and India.

INTERNAL TRADE OF BENGAL.

The internal trade of Bengal has next attracted the inquiries of your
Committee.

The great and valuable articles of the Company's investment, drawn from
the articles of internal trade, are raw silk, and various descriptions
of piece-goods made of silk and cotton. These articles are not under any
formal monopoly; nor does the Company at present exercise a _declared_
right of preemption with regard to them. But it does not appear that the
trade in these particulars is or can be perfectly free,--not so much on
account of any direct measures taken to prevent it as from the
circumstances of the country, and the manner of carrying on business
there: for the present trade, even in these articles, is built from the
ruins of old monopolies and preemptions, and necessarily partakes of the
nature of its materials.

In order to show in what manner manufactures and trade so constituted
contribute to the prosperity of the natives, your Committee conceives it
proper to take, in this place, a short general view of the progress of
the English policy with relation to the commerce of Bengal, and the
several stages and gradations by which it has been brought into its
actual state. The modes of abuse, and the means by which commerce has
suffered, will be considered in greater detail under the distinct heads
of those objects which have chiefly suffered by them.

During the time of the Mogul government, the princes of that race, who
omitted nothing for the encouragement of commerce in their dominions,
bestowed very large privileges and immunities on the Engli