for their
heads or any part of their body, or anything to raise them from the wet
ground; in which condition they were continued for many hours, until the
said Richard Barwell thought proper to remove them into a far worse
state, if possible, as if studying to exercise the most cruel acts of
barbarity on them, &c.; and that during their imprisonment they were
frequently carried to and tortured in the stocks in the middle of the
day, when the scorching heat of the sun was insupportable,
notwithstanding which they were denied the least covering." These men
assert that they had served the Company without blame for thirty
years,--a period commencing long before the power of the Company in
India.

It was no slight aggravation of this severity, that the objects were not
young, nor of the lowest of the people, who might, by the vigor of their
constitutions, or by the habits of hardship, be enabled to bear up
against treatment so full of rigor. They were aged persons; they were
men of a reputable profession.

The account given by these merchants of their first journey to Calcutta,
in July, 1774, is circumstantial and remarkable. They say, "that, on
their arrival, _to their astonishment, they soon learned that the
Governor, who had formerly been violently enraged against the said
Richard Barwell for different improprieties in his conduct, was now
reconciled to him; and that ever since there was a certainty of his
Majesty's appointments taking place in India, from being the most
inveterate enemies they were now become the most intimate friends; and
that this account soon taught them to believe they were not any nearer
justice from their journey to Calcutta than they had been before at
Dacca_."

When this bill of complaint was, in 1776, laid before the Council, to be
transmitted to the Court of Directors, Mr. Barwell complained of the
introduction of such a paper, and asserted, _that he had answered to
every particular of it on oath about eighteen months, and that during
this long period no attempt had been made to controvert, refute, or even
to reply to it_.

He did not, however, think it proper to enter his answer on the records
along with the bill of whose introduction he complained.

On the declarations made by Mr. Barwell in his minute (September, 1776)
your Committee observe, that, considering him only as an individual
under prosecution in a court of justice, it might be sufficient for him
to exhibit his defence in t