whilst he could wind at his own house, employed his
family in this labor, and could procure a reasonable livelihood by
buying up the cocoons for the Italian filature, now incurred the
enormous and ruinous loss of fifty per cent. This appears in a letter to
the Presidency, written by Mr. Boughton Rouse, now a member of your
Committee. But for a long time a considerable quantity of that in the
old Bengal mode of winding was bought for the Company from contractors,
and it continues to be so bought to the present time: but the Directors
complain, in their letter of the 12th of May, 1780, that both species,
and particularly the latter, had risen so extravagantly that it was
become more than forty per cent dearer than it had been fifteen years
ago. In that state of price, they condemn their servants, very justly,
for entering into contracts for three years,--and that for several
kinds of silk, of very different goodness, upon averages unfairly
formed, where the commodities averaged at an equal price differed from
twenty to thirty per cent on the sale. Soon after, they formed a regular
scale of fixed prices, above which they found they could not trade
without loss.

Whilst they were continuing these methods to secure themselves against
future losses, the Bengal ships which arrived in that year announced
nothing but their continuance. Some articles by the high price, and
others from their ill quality, were such "as never could answer to be
sent to Europe at any price." The Directors renew their prohibition of
making fresh contracts, the present being generally to expire in the
year 1781. But this trade, whose fundamental policy might have admitted
of a doubt, as applied to Bengal, (whatever it might have been with
regard to England,) was now itself expiring in the hands of the Company,
so that they were obliged to apply to government for power to enlarge
their capacity of receiving bills upon Europe. The purchase by these
bills they entirely divert from raw silk, and order to be laid out
wholly in piece-goods.

Thus, having found by experience that this trade, whilst carried on upon
the old principles, of whatever advantage it might have been to the
British manufacturers, or to the individuals who were concerned in it in
Bengal, had proved highly detrimental to the Company, the Directors
resolved to expunge the raw silk from their investment. They gave up the
whole to private traders, on condition of paying the freight, charge