dollars, about one million seven hundred thousand
pounds sterling; and not the smallest particle of silver sent to China
ever returns to India. It is not easy to determine in what proportions
this enormous sum of money has been sent from Madras or from Bengal; but
it equally exhausts a country belonging to this kingdom, whether it
comes from the one or from the other.

[Sidenote: Revenue above the investment, how applied.]

[Sidenote: Allowance to Nabob of Bengal.]

[Sidenote: How reduced.]

But that the greatness of all these drains, and their effects, may be
rendered more visible, your Committee have turned their consideration to
the employment of those parts of the Bengal revenue which are not
employed in the Company's own investments for China and for Europe. What
is taken over and above the investment (when any investment can be made)
from the gross revenue, either for the charge of collection or for civil
and military establishments, is in time of peace two millions at the
least. From the portion of that sum which goes to the support of civil
government the natives are almost wholly excluded, as they are from the
principal collections of revenue. With very few exceptions, they are
only employed as servants and agents to Europeans, or in the inferior
departments of collection, when it is absolutely impossible to proceed
a step without their assistance. For some time after the acquisition of
the territorial revenue, the sum of 420,000_l._ a year was paid,
according to the stipulation of a treaty, to the Nabob of Bengal, for
the support of his government. This sum, however inconsiderable,
compared to the revenues of the province, yet, distributed through the
various departments of civil administration, served in some degree to
preserve the natives of the better sort, particularly those of the
Mahomedan profession, from being utterly ruined. The people of that
persuasion, not being so generally engaged in trade, and not having on
their conquest of Bengal divested the ancient Gentoo proprietors of
their lands of inheritance, had for their chief, if not their sole
support, the share of a moderate conqueror in all offices, civil and
military. But your Committee find that this arrangement was of a short
duration. Without the least regard to the subsistence of this innocent
people, or to the faith of the agreement on which they were brought
under the British government, this sum was reduced by a new treaty to
320,000_