egan his secular duties by completing
for the season of indigo manufacture the buildings at Mudnabati, and
making the acquaintance of the ninety natives under his charge. Both
Mr. Udny and he knew well that he was above all things a Christian
missionary. "These will furnish a congregation immediately, and, added
to the extensive engagements which I must necessarily have with the
natives, will open a very wide door for activity. God grant that it
may not only be large but effectual."

These were the days, which continued till the next charter, when the
East India Company was still not only a body of merchants but of
manufacturers. Of all the old monopolies only the most evil one is
left, that of the growth, manufacture, and sale of opium. The civil
servants, who were termed Residents, had not political duties with
tributary sovereigns as now, but from great factory-like palaces, and
on large salaries, made advances of money to contractors, native and
European, who induced the ryots to weave cloth, to breed and feed the
silkworm, and to grow and make the blue dye to which India had long
given the name of "indigo." Mr. Carey was already familiar with the
system of advances for salt, and the opium monopoly was then in its
infancy. The European contractors were "interlopers," who introduced
the most valuable cultivation and processes into India, and yet with
whom the "covenanted" Residents were often at war. The Residents had
themselves liberty of private trade, and unscrupulous men abused it.
Clive had been hurried out thirty years before to check the abuse,
which was ruining not only the Company's investments but the people.
It had so spread on his departure that even judges and chaplains shared
in the spoils till Cornwallis interfered. In the case of Mr. G. Udny
and purely commercial agents the evil was reduced to a minimum, and the
practice had been deliberately sanctioned by Sir John Shore on the
ground that it was desirable to make the interests of the Company and
of individuals go hand in hand.

The days when Europe got its cotton cloth from India, calling it
"calico," from Calicut, and its rich yellow silks, have long since
passed, although the latter are still supplied in an inferior form, and
the former is once more raising its head, from the combination of
machinery and cheap labour. For the old abuses of the Company the
Government by Parliament has to some extent atoned by fostering the new
cultures of