Public Debt, bearing Interest outstanding at the several Presidencies on the 30th April, 1832.

The debts of India in 1833 were as follow:-Debts bearing interest-Bengal, about 32,000,000l.; Madras 3,000,000l.; Bombay, 630,000l.; not bearing interest-Bengal, 8,000,000l.; Madras, 700,0007.; Bombay, 300,000l. The five per cent. loan is the

principal debt, it amounts, in Bengal to 18,000,0007.; and in Madras, to 2,500,000l.; in Bombay none. The treasury notes issued by the Bengal government amount to 700,000%.

The home bond debt of the East India Company, amounting to 3,400,000l. is composed of securities. issued by the Company under their common seal, Parliament having authorized their borrowing money to a certain extent, and limiting its subsequent reduction to 3,000,000l.; the rate of interest paid in 1831 on this debt was two and a half per cent.

It only remains to be added, that by the new East India charter the Company's trade is placed in abeyance, and their whole assets, amounting to upwards of 21,000,000l. sterling, appropriated to the India territory, excepting 2,000,000l. to be invested as a sinking fund for the redemption of the capital stock of the East India Company proprietors (6,000,0007.) on the termination of forty years, at the rate of 51. 5s. for every 1001. stock; the remainder of the assets, as soon as realized, is to be appropriated, after payment of pensions and other charges arising out of the new arrangement, towards the liquidation of the six per cent. remittable loan, which amounts to about 9,000,000l. sterling.

CHAPTER IV.

COMMERCE OF INDIA, &c.-STAPLES OF HINDOSTAN, AND SUGGESTIONS FOR THEIR IMPROVEMENT AND DEVELOP

MENT.

THE Commerce between Europe and India has ever been considered one of the most important subjects which could engage the attention of a mercantile statesman; and the fertile regions of the eastern hemisphere are now anxiously looked forward to as a rich field for the enjoyment of British capital, industry and skill; the result depends on the justice of England towards Hindostan. No two countries could be better adapted by Providence for the blessings of commerce than the parent (or governing) and dependent state; the one a small and insulated kingdom in the western ocean, teeming with a hardy, industrious and ingenious population, two-thirds of whom are engaged in manipulating and vending the produce of more genial climes; and from their numbers, compared with the area of habitation, pressing close on national subsistence, while peace and foreign competition are daily excluding them from the mono polized commerce heretofore possessed;—the other an almost illimitable territory in the eastern world, connected, though separated by the navigable ocean, rich to overflowing with every bounty with which nature has enriched the earth, and peculiarly so in those agricultural products necessary to the manufactures, comforts, and luxuries of the more civilized nation. Heretofore the incalculable blessings to be