Your
Committee has taken abundant care that every important fact in their
Report should be attended with the authority for it, either in the
course of their reflections or in the Appendix: to report everything
upon every subject before them which is to be found on the records of
the Company would be to transcribe, and in the event to print, almost
the whole of those voluminous papers. The matter which appears before
them is in a summary manner this.
The Dacca merchants begin by complaining that in November, 1773, Mr.
Richard Barwell, then Chief of Dacca, had deprived them of their
employment and means of subsistence; that he had extorted from them
44,224 Arcot rupees (4,731_l._) by the terror of his threats, by long
imprisonment, and cruel confinement in the stocks; that afterwards they
were confined in a small room near the factory-gate, under a guard of
sepoys; that their food was stopped, and they remained starving a whole
day; that they were not permitted to take their food till next day at
noon, and were again brought back to the same confinement, in which they
were continued for six days, and were not set at liberty until they had
given Mr.
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