[Sidenote: Investments.]
A certain portion of the revenues of Bengal has been for many years set
apart to be employed in the purchase of goods for exportation to
England, and this is called the _Investment_. The greatness of this
investment has been the standard by which the merit of the Company's
principal servants has been too generally estimated; and this main cause
of the impoverishment of India has been generally taken as a measure of
its wealth and prosperity. Numerous fleets of large ships, loaded with
the most valuable commodities of the East, annually arriving in England,
in a constant and increasing succession, imposed upon the public eye,
and naturally gave rise to an opinion of the happy condition and growing
opulence of a country whose surplus productions occupied so vast a space
in the commercial world. This export from India seemed to imply also a
reciprocal supply, by which the trading capital employed in those
productions was continually strengthened and enlarged. But the payment
of a tribute, and not a beneficial commerce to that country, wore this
specious and delusive appearance.
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