hat an estimate should be made of the probable proceeds of an
investment conducted on the principles of that intended to be realized
for 1783. By this estimate, which is subjoined,[5] it appears to your
Committee, that, so far from any surplus profit from this transaction,
the Bengal adventurers themselves, instead of realizing 2_s._ 2_d._ the
rupee, (the standard they fix for their payment,) will not receive the
1_s._ 9_d._ which is its utmost value in silver at the Mint, nor
probably above 1_s._ 5_d._ With this certain loss before their eyes, it
is impossible that they can ever complete their subscription, unless, by
management among themselves, they should be able to procure the goods
for their own account upon other terms than those on which they
purchased them for their masters, or unless they have for the supply of
the Company on their hands a quantity of goods which they cannot
otherwise dispose of. This latter case is not very improbable, from
their proposing to send ten sixteenths of the whole investment in
silk,--which, as will be seen hereafter, the Company has prohibited to
be sent on their account, as a disadvantageous article. Nothing but the
servants being overloaded can rationally account for their choice of so
great a proportion of so dubious a commodity.

On the state made by two reports of a committee of the General Court in
1782, their affairs were even then reduced to a low ebb. But under the
arrangement announced by Mr. Hastings and his colleagues, it does not
appear, after this period of the servants' investment, from what fund
the proprietors are to make any dividend at all. The objects of the sale
from whence the dividend is to arise are not _their_ goods: they stand
accountable to others for the whole probable produce. The state of the
Company's commerce will therefore become an object of serious
consideration: an affair, as your Committee apprehends, of as much
difficulty as ever tried the faculties of this House. For, on the one
hand, it is plain that the system of providing the Company's import into
Europe, resting almost wholly by an investment from its territorial
revenues, has failed: during its continuance it was supported on
principles fatal to the prosperity of that country. On the other hand,
if the nominal commerce of the Company is suffered to be carried on for
the account of the servants abroad, by investing the emoluments made in
their stations, these emoluments are therefore inclu