he court where he was accused; but that, as a
member of government, specifically charged before that very government
with abusing the powers of his office in a very extraordinary manner,
and for purposes (as they allege) highly corrupt and criminal, it
appears to your Committee hardly sufficient to say that he had answered
elsewhere. The matter was to go before the Court of Directors, to whom
the question of his conduct in that situation, a situation of the
highest power and trust, was as much at least a question of state as a
matter of redress to be solely left to the discretion, capacity, or
perseverance of individuals. Mr. Barwell might possibly be generous
enough to take no advantage of his eminent situation; but these
unfortunate people would rather look to his power than his disposition.
In general, a man so circumstanced and so charged (though we do not know
this to be the case with Mr. Barwell) might easily contrive by legal
advantages to escape. The plaintiffs being at a great distance from the
seat of government, and possibly affected by fear or fatigue, or seeing
the impossibility of sustaining with the ruins of fortunes never perhaps
very opulent a suit against wealth, power, and influence, a compromise
might even take place, in which circumstances might make the
complainants gladly acquiesce. But the public injury is not in the least
repaired by the acquiescence of individuals, as it touched the honor of
the very highest parts of government. In the opinion of your Committee
some means ought to have been taken to bring the bill to a discussion on
the merits; or supposing that such decree could not be obtained by
reason of any failure of proceeding on the part of the plaintiffs, that
some process official or juridical ought to have been instituted against
them which might prove them guilty of slander and defamation in as
authentic a manner as they had made their charge, before the Council as
well as the Court.

By the determination of Mr. Hurst, and the resolutions of the Board of
Trade, it is much to be apprehended that the native mercantile interest
must be exceedingly reduced. The above-mentioned resolutions of the
Board of Trade, if executed in their rigor, must almost inevitably
accomplish its ruin. The subsequent transactions are covered with an
obscurity which your Committee have not been able to dispel. All which
they can collect, but that by no means distinctly, is, that, as those
who trade for the C