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f their power as by pretexts drawn from the freedom of the natives,--but with this fatal difference, that the frauds upon the Company must be of shorter duration under a scheme of freedom. That state admitted, and indeed led to, means of discovery and correction; whereas the system of coercion was likely to be permanent. It carried force further than served the purposes of those who authorized it: it tended to cover all frauds with obscurity, and to bury all complaint in despair. The next year, therefore, that is, in the year 1776, the Company, who complained that their orders had been extended beyond their intentions, made a third revolution in the trade of Bengal. It was set free again,--so far, at least, as regarded the native merchants,--but in so imperfect a manner as evidently to leave the roots of old abuses in the ground. The Supreme Court of Judicature about this time (1776) also fulminated a charge against monopolies, without any exception of those authorized by the Company: but it does not appear that anything very material was done in consequence of it. The trade became nominally free; but the course of business established in consequence of coercive monopoly was not easily altered. In order to render more distinct the principles which led to the establishment of a course and habit of business so very difficult to change as long as those principles exist, your Committee think it will not be useless here to enter into the history of the regulations made in the first and favorite matter of the Company's investment, the trade in _raw silk_, from the commencement of these regulations to the Company's perhaps finally abandoning all share in the trade which was their object. RAW SILK The trade in _raw silk_ was at all times more popular in England than really advantageous to the Company. In addition to the old jealousy which prevailed between the Company and the manufactory interest of England, they came to labor under no small odium on account of the distresses of India. The public in England perceived, and felt with a proper sympathy, the sufferings of the Eastern provinces in all cases in which they might be attributed to the abuses of power exercised under the Company's authority. But they were not equally sensible to the evils which arose from a system of sacrificing the being of that country to the advantage of this. They entered very readily into the former, but with regard to the latter were slow a
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