Every merchant, when he regulates the sum to be bestowed by him upon his subsistence, or the annual expence of his family, considers, _first_, what is the total amount of his effects, compared with his debts; and secondly, what is the amount of his annual profits; and if he finds that he has a considerable fortune over and above his debts, and that his annual profits are also considerable; he freely resolves, and with great propriety, to bestow a share of his annual profits upon the support and expence of his family; and it never can enter into his deliberation, in fixing what that annual expence shall be, whether or not at every particular period of the year, he is sure of having a balance of cash in his banker's hand; because, if his total expence is properly regulated, so as not to exceed what he can really afford, he knows the goods he is possessed of, must always be able to command cash sufficient for his temporary occasions: and indeed, if this rule were erroneous, there are many merchants in London possessed of fortunes to the amount of 150,000_l._ and their annual profits two or three thousands, who could not afford 50_l._ a year for their usual subsistence. If they were to be restricted in the manner now proposed for the India Company, they could not purchase a dinner and pay their debts; their effects probably in America or the West Indies, in the way of trade, their returns uncertain, as to the particular time, and large debts due in England, as the price of cargoes sent abroad; so that, upon the footing of their banker's book, after deducting all their debts due at home, they might be obliged to subsist upon air for several years together. The credit of a public company is much superior to that of private merchants; those to whom they owe the prices of goods, freights or other book debts, are much more ready to indulge them with delays of payment than the creditors of particular merchants. The India Company is under no embarrasment with respect to its creditors; its only embarrasment is from the choice it has unhappily made of a set of Directors, who seem determined, if possible, to stab the credit of the Company, and to try to what degree of injuries and insults the patience of the Proprietors will tamely submit.