The import duty of raw materials for cordage was 4 per cent.; it was stated to the Board that cordage manufactured became fubject to a duty of 9 per cent. besides the fees, and foreigners only paid 6 per cent.; the Board ordered that only one duty fhould be required: Surat cotton was under the fame predicament, but could not be included in the fame rule without ruining the collection, and these goods were either fmuggled into Calcutta or carried into foreign factories, from whence they were exported without duty: this occafioned new arrangements in 1782; two new Cuftom-house ftations were established at Houghly Point and Keeble Canal to intercept goods and collect the duty; and the Cuftom-houses at Scrool and Malda were difcontinued, and the Government customs to the northern and western parts of Hindoftan were thereby abandoned. A new participation of the commiffion on the col lection was ordered at the fame time; the first commiffioner, as Prefident, was allowed five fhares, and four to each Commiffioner, and two fhares to the Secretary and Accomptant; the whole commiffion was thus

divided in fifteen fhares. The Directors, in January, 1783, difapproved of the arrangement, and recommended a general revifion. In April, 1785, they ordered the Board of Cuftoms to be abolished, and the allowances of Collectors to be reduced to the ftandard of 1776, and the Government customs to be managed, and the expences defrayed, from the allowance to which the revenue department was then limited. The foreign companies afferted their privilege of Phirmaund, and exemption from the Company's cuftoms. The refined British ftatefman who fettled the treaty of Verfailles introduced a new defcription of fubjects to the British empire; that treaty guaranteed the freedom of trade to the French in British India, and Mr. Macpherfon endeavoured by negociation to render the thirteenth article intelligible and practicable: the prohibition of importing coaft falt was maintained by conceding a partial exemption to the foreign fettlements of a limited quantity of falt. The other privileges of Phirmaunds were infifted on as very important, and it was propofed to reduce even these claims to a definite and conve

nient extent; the honourable Charles Cathcart was entrufted by the Governor General, and his able negociation with M. de Souillac, the French Governor General, brought this important explanation to a crifis. The Directors had formed a treaty with the Directors of the French Eaft-India Company in 1785, which the Comptroller General of Finances rejected; the agreement of Mr. Macpherson relative to falt was alfo difallowed by the French Government in India; and another plan which the foreign merchants folicited, met with favour from the Governor General; but it occafioned much clamour at Calcutta, and was not confirmed by the Directors and Board of Control. The foreign merchants. were willing to carry on their trade from Calcutta inftead of their factories, provided they were allowed to pay the fame duties which they paid in their fettlements; and the whole argument which fupported the clamour of the English merchants confifted in ftating, that they should still be liable to pay to the Company's duty, from which the foreign merchant would continue to be exempt, and they prevailed in perpetuating

the hopes of future evasions under foreign privileges, but Government was aware of the former evafions which the Company complained of, and adopted the expedient of difcontinuing the inland Government duty on foreigners, and left them to make the most of their Phirmaunds. The convention fettled provisionally by M. de Souillac and Colonel Cathcart was reduced into a definite explanation of the treaty of Verfailles by Lord Auckland, then plenipotentiary at Paris, and French fubjects were to be as British subjects in commercial concerns this explains the curious diftinction above mentioned in the introduction, "French fubjects are as British fubjects, other Europeans are not as British fubje&s in British India." It is a neceffary and important object of the Directors and Board of Control to revife this fubject; the powers of the present act are competent, and the definition of privileges must be rendered uniform and just.

I should not have dwelt fo much on the

* Page xxix, and Plans for British India, p. 412.

progrefs of the Company's collections if the attention of Parliament, and indeed of the Board of Control, had been fufficiently directed to the Company's policy. An erroneous definition of perfons and things is ftill infifted on; the ftatement of fecurities to the proprietors of India stock, on territory and cuftoms in British India, might have paffed without observation fo long as the enumeration refted on the opinion of an anonymous proprietor of India ftock; but as it forms an important addition to the fecurity which Mr. Ruffel ftates to belong to the Company, and its amount correfponds to the fum ftated by Mr. Dundas in opening the new India bill this year, it becomes neceffary to fhew that the Company's cuftoms are the Government cuftoms, and that the attempts to elude the rights of the ftate have hitherto been equally ruinous to the interefts of the Company and to the rights of the public, and if permitted to continue, will fuperfede the benefits of the prefent act.

Short Hiftory, p. 36.