That which they
think it most immediately necessary to annex to the Appendix to this
Report is the resolution of the Council-General to allow to the members
of the Board of Trade resident in Calcutta a charge of five per cent on
the sale in England of the investment formed upon their second plan,
namely, that plan which had been communicated to Lord Macartney. The
investment on this plan is stated to be raised from 800,000_l._ to
1,000,000_l._ sterling.
It is on all accounts a very memorable transaction, and tends to bring
on a heavy burden, operating in the nature of a tax laid by their own
authority on the goods of their masters in England. If such a
compensation to the Board of Trade was necessary on account of their
engagement to take no further (that is to say, no unlawful) emolument,
it implies that the practice of making such unlawful emolument had
formerly existed; and your Committee think it very extraordinary that
the first notice the Company had received of such a practice should be
in taxing them for a compensation for a partial abolition of it, secured
on the parole of honor of those very persons who are supposed to have
been guilty of this unjustifiable conduct.
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