it was a well-cultivated and
populous country, and as such consumed many articles of merchandise;
that at his departure he left it much circumscribed in trade, greatly in
the decline as to population and culture, and with a correspondent decay
of the territorial revenue.

Your Committee find that there has also been from Madras an investment
on the Company's account, taking one year with another, very nearly on
the same principles and with the same effects as that from Bengal; and
they think it is highly probable, that, besides the large sums remitted
directly from Madras to China, there has likewise been a great deal on a
private account, for that and other countries, invested in the cash of
foreign European powers trading on the coast of Coromandel. But your
Committee have not extended their inquiries relative to the commerce of
the countries dependent on Madras so far as they have done with regard
to Bengal. They have reason to apprehend that the condition is rather
worse; but if the House requires a more minute examination of this
important subject, your Committee is willing to enter into it without
delay.

III.--EFFECT OF THE REVENUE INVESTMENT ON THE COMPANY.

Hitherto your Committee has considered this system of revenue
investment, substituted in the place of a commercial link between India
and Europe, so far as it affects India only: they are now to consider it
as it affects the Company. So long as that corporation continued to
receive a vast quantity of merchantable goods without any disbursement
for the purchase, so long it possessed wherewithal to continue a
dividend to pay debts, and to contribute to the state. But it must have
been always evident to considerate persons, that this vast extraction of
wealth from a country lessening in its resources in proportion to the
increase of its burdens was not calculated for a very long duration. For
a while the Company's servants kept up this investment, not by improving
commerce, manufacture, or agriculture, but by forcibly raising the
land-rents, on the principles and in the manner hereafter to be
described. When these extortions disappointed or threatened to
disappoint expectation, in order to purvey for the avarice which raged
in England, they sought for expedients in breaches of all the agreements
by which they were bound by any payment to the country powers, and in
exciting disturbances among all the neighboring princes. Stimulating
their ambition, and fome