But when the object
is considered more nearly, instead of relief, these companies, who from
their want of authority in the country might seem to trade upon a
principle merely commercial, will be found to add their full proportion
to the calamity brought upon Bengal by the destructive system of the
ruling power; because the greater part of the capital of all these
companies, and perhaps the whole capital of some of them, is furnished
exactly as the British is, out of the revenues of the country. The civil
and military servants of the English East India Company being
restricted in drawing bills upon Europe, and none of them ever making or
proposing an establishment in India, a very great part of their
fortunes, well or ill gotten, is in all probability thrown, as fast as
required, into the cash of these companies.
In all other countries, the revenue, following the natural course and
order of things, arises out of their commerce. Here, by a mischievous
inversion of that order, the whole foreign maritime trade, whether
English, French, Dutch, or Danish, arises from the revenues; and these
are carried out of the country without producing anything to compensate
so heavy a loss.
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