lect
Committee's Sixth Report.

[7] The whole sum has not been actually raised; but the deficiency is
not very considerable.

[8] Fourth Report, page 106.

[9] Par. 36. Vide Fourth Report from Com. of Secrecy in 1773, Appendix,
No. 45.

[10] Vide Sel. Letter to Bengal, 17 May, 1766, Par. 36, in Fourth Report
from Com. of Secrecy, in 1773, Appendix, No. 45.

[11] Ibid. Par. 37.

[12] Vide Committee's Fifth Report, page 21, and Appendix to that
Report, No. 12.

[13] 1st and 5th April, 1779.

ELEVENTH REPORT

OF THE

SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

ON

THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA.

WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE APPENDIX.

November 18, 1783.

ELEVENTH REPORT

From the SELECT COMMITTEE appointed to take into
consideration the state of the administration of justice in
the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and to report the
same, as it shall appear to them, to the House, with their
observations thereupon; and who were instructed to consider
how the British possessions in the East Indies may be held
and governed with the greatest security and advantage to this
country, and by what means the happiness of the native
inhabitants may be best protected.

Your Committee, in the course of their inquiry into the obedience
yielded by the Company's Servants to the orders of the Court of
Directors, (the authority of which orders had been strengthened by the
Regulating Act of 1773,) could not overlook one of the most essential
objects of that act and of those orders, namely, _the taking of gifts
and presents_. These pretended free gifts from the natives to the
Company's servants in power had never been authorized by law; they are
contrary to the covenants formerly entered into by the President and
Council, they are strictly forbidden by the act of Parliament, and
forbidden upon grounds of the most substantial policy.

Before the Regulating Act of 1773, the allowances made by the Company to
the Presidents of Bengal were abundantly sufficient to guaranty them
against anything like a necessity for giving into that pernicious
practice. The act of Parliament which appointed a Governor-General in
the place of a President, as it was extremely particular in enforcing
the prohibition of those presents, so it was equally careful in making
an ample provision for supporting the dignity of the office, in order to
remove all excuse for a corrupt increase of its emoluments.