The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12). Edmund Burke

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СКАЧАТЬ 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. Allowance to Nabob of Bengal. For some time after the acquisition of the territorial revenue, the sum of 420,000l. 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, How reduced. this sum was reduced by a new treaty to 320,000l., and soon after, (upon a pretence of the present Nabob's minority, and a temporary sequestration for the discharge of his debts,) to 160,000l.: but when he arrived at his majority, and when the debts were paid, (if ever they were paid,) the sequestration still continued; and so far as the late advices may be understood, the allowance to the Nabob appears still to stand at the reduced sum of 160,000l.

      Native officers. The other resource of the Mahomedans, and of the Gentoos of certain of the higher castes, was the army. In this army, nine tenths of which consists of natives, no native, of whatever description, holds any rank higher than that of a Subahdar Commandant, that is, of an officer below the rank of an English subaltern, who is appointed to each company of the native soldiery.

      All lucrative employments in the hands of the English. Your Committee here would be understood to state the ordinary establishment: for the war may have made some alteration. All the honorable, all the lucrative situations of the army, all the supplies and contracts of whatever species that belong to it, are solely in the hands of the English; so that whatever is beyond the mere subsistence of a common soldier and some officers of a lower rank, together with the immediate expenses of the English officers at their table, is sooner or later, in one shape or another, sent out of the country.

      Such was the state of Bengal even in time of profound peace, and before the whole weight of the public charge fell upon that unhappy country for the support of other parts of India, which have been desolated in such a manner as to contribute little or nothing to their own protection.

      Your Committee have given this short comparative account of the effects of the maritime traffic of Bengal, when in its natural state, and as it has stood since the prevalence of the system of an investment from the revenues. Former state of trade. But before the formation of that system Bengal did by no means depend for its resources on its maritime commerce. The inland trade, from whence it derived a very great supply of silver and gold and many kinds of merchantable goods, was very considerable. The higher provinces of the Mogul Empire were then populous and opulent, and intercourse to an immense amount was carried on between them and Bengal. A great trade also passed through these provinces from all the countries on the frontier of Persia, and the frontier provinces of Tartary, as well as from Surat and Baroach on the western side of India. These parts opened to Bengal a communication with the Persian Gulf and with the Red Sea, and through them with the whole Turkish and the maritime parts of the Persian Empire, besides the commercial intercourse which it maintained with those and many other countries through its own seaports.

      During that period the remittances to the Mogul's treasury from Bengal were never very large, at least for any considerable time, nor very regularly sent; and the impositions of the state were soon repaid with interest through the medium of a lucrative commerce. But the disorders of Persia, since the death of Kouli Khân, have wholly destroyed the trade of that country; And the trade to Turkey. and the trade to Turkey, by Jidda and Bussorah, which was the greatest and perhaps best branch of the Indian trade, is very much diminished. The fall of the throne of the Mogul emperors has drawn with it that of the great marts of Agra and Delhi. The utmost confusion of the northwestern provinces followed this revolution, which was not absolutely complete until it received the last hand from Great Britain. Still greater calamities have fallen upon the fine provinces of Rohilcund and Oude, and on the countries of Corah and Allahabad. By the operations of the British arms and influence, they are in many places turned to mere deserts, or so reduced and decayed as to afford very few materials or means of commerce.

      State of trade in the Carnatic. Such is the actual condition of the trade of Bengal since the establishment of the British power there. The commerce of the Carnatic, as far as the inquiries of your Committee have extended, did not appear with a better aspect, even before the invasion of Hyder Ali Khân, and the consequent desolation, which for many years to come must exclude it from any considerable part of the trading system.

      It appears, on the examination of an intelligent person concerned in trade, and who resided at Madras for several years, that on his arrival there, which was in the year 1767, that city was in a flourishing condition, and one of the first marts in India; but when he left it, in 1779, there was little or no trade remaining, and but one ship belonging to the whole place. The evidence of this gentleman purports, that at his first acquaintance with the Carnatic 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 fomenting 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 СКАЧАТЬ