Under this head you are pleased, in lieu of our paragraphs, to
substantiate at once the justice of all those demands which the act
requires us to investigate, subject only to a right reserved to the
Nabob, or any other party concerned, to question the justice of any debt
falling within the last of the three classes. We submit, that at least
the opportunity of questioning, within the limited time, the justice of
any of the debts, ought to have been fully preserved; and supposing the
first and second classes to stand free from imputation, (as we incline
to believe they do,) no injury can result to individuals from such
discussion: and we further submit to your consideration, how far the
express direction of the act to examine the nature and origin of the
debts has been by the amended paragraphs complied with; and whether at
least the rate of interest, according to which the debts arising from
soucar assignment of the land-revenues to the servants of the Company,
acting in the capacity of native bankers, have been accumulated, ought
not to be inquired into, as well as the reasonableness of the deduction
of twenty-five per cent which the Bengal government directed to be made
from a great part of the debts on certain conditions. But to your
appropriation of the fund our duty requires that we should state our
strongest dissent. Our right to be paid the arrears of those expenses by
which, almost to our own ruin, we have preserved the country and all
the property connected with it from falling a prey to a foreign
conqueror, surely stands paramount to all claims for former debts upon
the revenues of a country so preserved, even if the legislature had not
expressly limited the assistance to be given the private creditors to be
such as should be consistent with our own rights.
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