f their power
as by pretexts drawn from the freedom of the natives,--but with this
fatal difference, that the frauds upon the Company must be of shorter
duration under a scheme of freedom. That state admitted, and indeed led
to, means of discovery and correction; whereas the system of coercion
was likely to be permanent. It carried force further than served the
purposes of those who authorized it: it tended to cover all frauds with
obscurity, and to bury all complaint in despair. The next year,
therefore, that is, in the year 1776, the Company, who complained that
their orders had been extended beyond their intentions, made a third
revolution in the trade of Bengal. It was set free again,--so far, at
least, as regarded the native merchants,--but in so imperfect a manner
as evidently to leave the roots of old abuses in the ground. The Supreme
Court of Judicature about this time (1776) also fulminated a charge
against monopolies, without any exception of those authorized by the
Company: but it does not appear that anything very material was done in
consequence of it.

The trade became nominally free; but the course of business established
in consequence of coercive monopoly was not easily altered. In order to
render more distinct the principles which led to the establishment of a
course and habit of business so very difficult to change as long as
those principles exist, your Committee think it will not be useless here
to enter into the history of the regulations made in the first and
favorite matter of the Company's investment, the trade in _raw silk_,
from the commencement of these regulations to the Company's perhaps
finally abandoning all share in the trade which was their object.

RAW SILK

The trade in _raw silk_ was at all times more popular in England than
really advantageous to the Company. In addition to the old jealousy
which prevailed between the Company and the manufactory interest of
England, they came to labor under no small odium on account of the
distresses of India. The public in England perceived, and felt with a
proper sympathy, the sufferings of the Eastern provinces in all cases in
which they might be attributed to the abuses of power exercised under
the Company's authority. But they were not equally sensible to the evils
which arose from a system of sacrificing the being of that country to
the advantage of this. They entered very readily into the former, but
with regard to the latter were slow a