nting their mutual animosities, they sold to
them reciprocally their common servitude and ruin.

The Governor-General, Mr. Hastings, and the Council, tell the Directors,
"that the supply for the investment has arisen from _casual_ and
_extraordinary_ resources, which they could not expect _always_ to
command." In an earlier minute he expresses himself still more
distinctly: he says, "If the internal resources of a state fail it, or
are not equal to its _occasional_ wants, whence can it obtain immediate
relief but from _external_ means?" Indeed, the investment has not been
for any long time the natural product of the revenue of Bengal. When, by
the vast charge and by the ill return of an evil political and military
traffic, and by a prodigal increase of establishments, and a profuse
conduct in distributing agencies and contracts, they found themselves
under difficulties, instead of being cured of their immoral and
impolitic delusion, they plunged deeper into it, and were drawn from
expedient to expedient for the supply of the investment into that
endless chain of wars which this House by its resolutions has so justly
condemned. At home these measures were sometimes countenanced, sometimes
winked at, sometimes censured, but always with an acceptance of whatever
profit they afforded.

At length, the funds for the investment and for these wars together
could no longer be supplied. In the year 1778 the provision for the
investment from the revenues and from the monopolies stood very high. It
was estimated at a million four hundred thousand pounds; and of this it
appears that a great deal was realized. But this was the high flood-tide
of the investment; for in that year they announce its probable decline,
and that such extensive supplies could not be continued. The advances to
the Board of Trade became less punctual, and many disputes arose about
the time of making them. However, knowing that all their credit at home
depended on the investment, or upon an opinion of its magnitude, whilst
they repeat their warning of a probable deficiency, and that their
"finances bore an unfavorable aspect," in the year 1779 they rate their
investment still higher. But their payments becoming less and less
regular, and the war carrying away all the supplies, at length Mr.
Hastings, in December, 1780, denounced sentence of approaching
dissolution to this system, and tells the Directors that "he bore too
high a respect for their characters to