Hastings thought fit to abandon it. In
September, 1780, he changed his plan a third time, and proposed the
institution of a _salt office_; the salt was to be again engrossed for
the benefit of the Company, and the management conducted by a number of
salt agents.
From the preceding facts it appears that in this branch of the Company's
government little regard has been paid to the ease and welfare of the
natives, and that the Directors have nowhere shown greater inconsistency
than in their orders on this subject. Yet salt, considering it as a
necessary of life, was by no means a safe and proper subject for so many
experiments and innovations. For ten years together the Directors
reprobated the idea of suffering this necessary of life to be engrossed
on _any condition whatsoever_, and strictly prohibited all Europeans
from trading in it. Yet, as soon as they were made to expect from Mr.
Hastings that the profits of the monopoly should be converted to their
own use, they immediately declared that it "could be no considerable
grievance to the country," and authorized its continuance, until he
himself, finding it produced little or nothing, renounced it of his own
accord.
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