and expectations of revenue, and all his plans
for its application, with this indispensable condition, that the
management is not in the hands of the Nabob of Arcot. Should that fatal
measure take place, he has over and over again told you that he has no
prospect of realizing anything whatsoever for any public purpose. With
these weighty declarations, confirmed by such a state of indisputable
fact before them, what has been done by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
and his accomplices? Shall I be believed? They have delivered over those
very territories, on the keeping of which in the hands of the committee
the defence of our dominions, and, what was more dear to them, possibly,
their own job, depended,--they have delivered back again, without
condition, without arrangement, without stipulation of any sort for the
natives of any rank, the whole of those vast countries, to many of which
he had no just claim, into the ruinous mismanagement of the Nabob of
Arcot. To crown all, according to their miserable practice, whenever
they do anything transcendently absurd, they preface this their
abdication of their trust by a solemn declaration that they were not
obliged to it by any principle of policy or any demand of justice
whatsoever.

I have stated to you the estimated produce of the territories of the
Carnatic in a condition to be farmed in 1782, according to the different
managements into which they might fall; and this estimate the ministers
have thought proper to suppress. Since that, two other accounts have
been received. The first informs us, that there has been a recovery of
what is called arrear, as well as of an improvement of the revenue of
one of the six provinces which were let in 1782.[43] It was brought
about by making a new war. After some sharp actions, by the resolution
and skill of Colonel Fullarton several of the petty princes of the most
southerly of the unwasted provinces were compelled to pay very heavy
rents and tributes, who for a long time before had not paid any
acknowledgment. After this reduction, by the care of Mr. Irwin, one of
the committee, that province was divided into twelve farms. This
operation raised the income of that particular province; the others
remain as they were first farmed. So that, instead of producing only
their original rent of 480,000_l._, they netted, in about two years and
a quarter, 1,320,000_l._ sterling, which would be about 660,000_l._ a
year, if the recovered arrear wa