nland trade in salt_, and several other articles of commerce.
But other politics and other interests prevailed, so that in the May
following a General Court resolved, that it should be recommended to the
Court of Directors to reconsider the preceding orders; in consequence of
which the Directors ordered the Governor and Council to form a plan, in
concert with the Nabob, for regulating the inland trade.

On these last orders Lord Clive's plan was formed, in 1765, for
engrossing the sole purchase of salt, and dividing the profits among the
Company's senior servants. The Directors, who had hitherto reluctantly
given way to a monopoly under any ideas or for any purposes, disapproved
of this plan, and on the 17th May, 1766, ordered it to be abolished; but
they substituted no other in its room.[9] In this manner things
continued until November, 1767, when the Directors repeated their orders
for excluding all persons whatever, excepting the natives only, from
being concerned in the inland trade in salt; and they declared that
(vide par. 90) "_such trade is hereby abolished and put a final end
to_." In the same letter (par. 92) they ordered that the salt trade
should be laid open to the natives in general, subject to such a duty
as might produce one hundred and twenty thousand pounds a year. This
policy was adopted by the legislature. In the act of 1773 it was
expressly provided, that it should not be lawful for any of his
Majesty's subjects to engage, intermeddle, or be any way concerned,
directly or indirectly, in the inland trade in salt, except on the India
Company's account.

Under the positive orders of the Company, the salt trade appears to have
continued open from 1768 to 1772. The act, indeed, contained an
exception in favor of the Company, and left them a liberty of dealing in
salt upon their own account. But still this policy remained unchanged,
and their orders unrevoked. But in the year 1772, without any
instruction from the Court of Directors indicating a change of opinion
or system, the whole produce was again monopolized, professedly for the
use of the Company, by Mr. Hastings. Speaking of this plan, he says
(letter to the Directors, 22d February, 1775): "No new hardship has been
imposed upon the salt manufacturers by taking the management of that
article into the hands of government; the only difference is, that the
profit which was before reaped by English gentlemen and by banians is
now acquired by the Compa