where the facts might be admitted, what
justification was set up. It appeared necessary, in order to determine
on the true situation of the trade and the merchants of that great city
and district.

The Secretary to the Court of Directors has informed your Committee that
no copy of the answer is to be found in the India House; nor has your
Committee been able to discover that any has been transmitted. On this
failure, your Committee ordered an application to be made to Mr. Barwell
for a copy of his answer to the bill, and any other information with
which he might be furnished with regard to that subject.

Mr. Barwell, after reciting the above letter, returned in answer what
follows.

"Whether the records of the Supreme Court of Judicature are lodged at
the India House I am ignorant, but on those records my answer is
certainly to be found. At this distance of time I am sorry I cannot from
memory recover the circumstances of this affair; but this I know, that
the bill did receive a complete answer, and the people the fullest
satisfaction: nor is it necessary for me to remark, that [in?] the state
of parties at that time in Bengal, could party have brought forward any
particle of that bill supported by any verified fact, the principle that
introduced it in the proceedings of the Governor-General and Council
would likewise have given the verification of that one circumstance,
whatever that might have been. As I generally attend in my place in the
House, I shall with pleasure answer any invitation of the gentlemen of
the Committee to attend their investigations up stairs with every
information and light in my power to give them.

"St. James's Square, 15th April, 1783."

Your Committee considered, that, with regard to the matter charged in
the several petitions to the board, no sort of specific answer had been
given at the time and place where they were made, and when and where the
parties might be examined and confronted. It was considered also, that
the bill had been transmitted, with other papers relating to the same
matter, to the Court of Directors, with the knowledge and consent of Mr.
Barwell,--and that he states that his answer had been filed, and no
proceedings had upon it for eighteen months. In that situation it was
thought something extraordinary that no care was taken by him to
transmit so essential a paper as his answer, and that he had no copy of
it in his hands.

Your Committee, in this difficulty, thoug