sively authorized,
and with them the practices from which they accrue. All Parliamentary
attempts to reform this system will be contradictory to its institution.
If, for instance, five hundred thousand pounds sterling annually be
necessary for this kind of investment, any regulation which may prevent
the acquisition of that sum operates against the investment which is the
end proposed by the plan.

On this new scheme, (which is neither calculated for a future security
nor for a present relief to the Company,) it is not visible in what
manner the settlements in India can be at all upheld. The gentlemen in
employments abroad call for the whole produce of the year's investment
from Bengal; but for the payment of the counter-investment from Europe,
which is for the far greater part sent out for the support of their
power, no provision at all is made: they have not, it seems, agreed that
it should be charged to their account, or that any deduction should be
made for it from the produce of their sales in Leadenhall Street. How
far such a scheme is preferable to the total suspension of trade your
Committee cannot positively determine. In all likelihood, extraordinary
expedients were necessary; but the causes which induced this necessity
ought to be more fully inquired into; for the last step in a series of
conduct may be justifiable upon principles that suppose great blame in
those which preceded it.

After your Committee had made the foregoing observations upon the plan
of Mr. Hastings and his colleagues, transmitted to the Court of
Directors, an extract of the Madras Consultations was a few days ago
laid before us. This extract contains a letter from the Governor-General
and Council of Bengal to the Presidency of Fort St. George, which
affords a very striking, though to your Committee by no means an
unexpected, picture of the instability of their opinions and conduct. On
the 8th of April the servants had regularly formed and digested the
above-mentioned plan, which was to form the basis for the investment of
their own fortunes, and to furnish the sole means of the commercial
existence of their masters. Before the 10th of the following May, which
is the date of their letter to Madras, they inform Lord Macartney that
they had fundamentally altered the whole scheme. "Instead," say they,
"of allowing the subscribers to retain an interest in the goods, they
are to be provided entirely on account of the Company, and transported