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g great and deserved discredit on the British government. The English are a people who appear in India as a conquering nation; all dealing with them is therefore, more or less, a dealing with power. It is such when they trade on a private account; and it is much more so in any authorized monopoly, where the hand of government, which ought never to appear but to protect, is felt as the instrument in every act of oppression. Abuses must exist in a trade and a revenue so constituted, and there is no effectual cure for them but to entirely cut off their cause. Things continued in this train, until the great revolution in the Company's government was wrought by the Regulating Act of the thirteenth of the king. In 1775 the new Council-General appointed by the act took this troublesome business again into consideration. General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis expressed such strong doubts of the propriety of this and of all other monopolies, that the Directors, in their letter of the year following, left the Council at liberty to throw the trade open, under a duty, if they should find it practicable. But General Clavering, who most severely censured monopoly in general, thought that this monopoly ought to be retained,--but for a reason which shows his opinion of the wretched state of the country: for he supposed it impossible, with the power and influence which must attend British subjects in all their transactions, that monopoly could be avoided; and he preferred an avowed monopoly, which brought benefit to government, to a virtual engrossing, attended with profit only to individuals. But in this opinion he did not seem to be joined by Mr. Francis, who thought the suppression of this and of all monopolies to be practicable, and strongly recommended their abolition in a plan sent to the Court of Directors the year following.[6] The Council, however, submitting to the opinion of this necessity, endeavored to render that dubious engagement as beneficial as possible to the Company. They began by putting up the contract to the highest bidder. The proposals were to be sealed. When the seals came to be opened, a very extraordinary scene appeared. Every step in this business develops more and more the effect of this junction of public monopoly and private influence. Four English and eight natives were candidates for the contract; three of the English far overbid the eight natives. They who consider that the natives, from
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