Since, then, the ministers will obstinately shut the gates
of mercy on themselves, let them add to their crimes what aggravations
they please. They have, then, (since it must be so,) wilfully and
corruptly suppressed the information which they ought to have produced,
and, for the support of peculation, have made themselves guilty of
spoliation and suppression of evidence.[42] The paper I hold in my hand,
which totally overturns (for the present, at least) the estimate of
1781, they have no more taken notice of, in their controversy with the
Court of Directors, than if it had no existence. It is the report made
by a committee appointed at Madras to manage the whole of the six
countries assigned to the Company by the Nabob of Arcot. This committee
was wisely instituted by Lord Macartney, to remove from himself the
suspicion of all improper management in so invidious a trust; and it
seems to have been well chosen. This committee has made a comparative
estimate of the only six districts which were in a condition to be let
to farm. In one set of columns they state the gross and net produce of
the districts as let by the Nabob. To that statement they oppose the
terms on which the same districts were rented for five years under
their authority. Under the Nabob, the gross farm was so high as
570,000_l._ sterling. What was the clear produce? Why, no more than
about 250,000_l.
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