It has sometimes happened to this Company, as it frequently happens to other merchants, that its returns have not arrived at the time expected, and that their investments during some particular years have fallen short; in such cases they have not been able to pay, with the strictest punctuality, the price of the goods bought on credit, nor the freights due for shipping or other articles of the same kind; and in such cases the furnishers of these goods or ships have indulged the Company with a delay of payment; and in order to indemnify themselves for that delay, these creditors have either taken a higher price for their next goods, or sometimes have been allowed interest from the Company, but in no instance have these debts, so contracted, been converted into debts under the Company's seal, nor were ever considered as money borrowed. The purpose of restraining the Company as to their power of borrowing under their common seal, was merely to prevent their interfering in the market with government loans, exactly upon the same principle that private lotteries, &c. are prohibited by law; but in all other respects the Company is unlimited, as every private merchant is, as to the exercise it may chuse to make of its credit in the purchase of goods, or incurring debts in any other mode except coming into the market to borrow under their seal, by which alone the Company can interfere with the loans required by Government for the purposes of the state. So long as the Company carries on its trade with advantage to itself and the nation, and preserves entire, an ample sufficiency of funds to pay all its debts, and repay its capital, there can be no reason in common sense for preventing its employing its credit in the purchase of as great a quantity as possible of our own commodities to send to India, and employing as great a number of shipping as the trade will possibly allow.