heir special orders and instructions," was very proper. They prudently
reserved to themselves the right of deciding on such questions; but
they reserved it to no purpose. In England the authority is purely
formal. In Bengal the power is positive and real. When they clash, their
opposition serves only to degrade the authority that ought to
predominate, and to exalt the power that ought to be dependent.

* * * * *

Since the closing of the above Report, many material papers have arrived
from India, and have been laid before your Committee. That which they
think it most immediately necessary to annex to the Appendix to this
Report is the resolution of the Council-General to allow to the members
of the Board of Trade resident in Calcutta a charge of five per cent on
the sale in England of the investment formed upon their second plan,
namely, that plan which had been communicated to Lord Macartney. The
investment on this plan is stated to be raised from 800,000_l._ to
1,000,000_l._ sterling.

It is on all accounts a very memorable transaction, and tends to bring
on a heavy burden, operating in the nature of a tax laid by their own
authority on the goods of their masters in England. If such a
compensation to the Board of Trade was necessary on account of their
engagement to take no further (that is to say, no unlawful) emolument,
it implies that the practice of making such unlawful emolument had
formerly existed; and your Committee think it very extraordinary that
the first notice the Company had received of such a practice should be
in taxing them for a compensation for a partial abolition of it, secured
on the parole of honor of those very persons who are supposed to have
been guilty of this unjustifiable conduct. Your Committee consider this
engagement, if kept, as only a partial abolition of the implied corrupt
practice: because no part of the compensation is given to the members of
the Board of Trade who reside at the several factories, though their
means of abuse are without all comparison greater; and if the corruption
was supposed so extensive as to be bought off at that price where the
means were fewer, the House will judge how far the tax has purchased off
the evil.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See the Secret Committee's Reports on the Mahratta War.

[2] Vide Secret Committee Reports.

[3] Vide Select Committee Reports, 1781

[4] The sale, to the amount of about one hundred thousand