The private trade was another grand source of revenue. The public trade, that is, the transit of goods to and from Europe, was the peculiar monopoly of the Company; but all coasting trade—trade to and between the isles, and in the interior of India, became a monopoly of the higher servants of the Company, who were at once engaged in the Company’s concerns and their own. The monopoly of salt, opium, betel, and other commodities became a mine of wealth. The Company’s servants could fix the price at whatever rate they pleased, and thus enhance it to the unfortunate people so as to occasion them the most intense distress. Fortunes were made in a day by this monopoly, and without the advance of a single shilling. The very Governor-general himself engaged in this private trade; and contracts were given to favourites on such terms, that two or three fortunes were made out of them before they reached the merchant. In one case that came out on the trial of Warren Hastings, a contract for opium had been given to Mr. Sullivan, though he was going into quite a different part of India, and on public business; this, of course, he sold again, to Mr. Benn, for 40,000_l._; and Mr. Benn immediately sold it again for 60,000_l._, clearing 20,000_l._ by the mere passing of the contract from one hand to the other; and the purchaser then declared that he made a large sum by it. All these things put together, made India the theatre of sure and splendid fortune to the adventurer, and of sore and abject misery to the native. We have only to look about us in any part of England, but especially in the metropolis, and within fifty miles round it, to see what streams of wealth have flowed into this country from India. What thousands of splendid mansions and estates are lying in view, which, when the traveller inquires their history, have been purchased by the gold of India. We are told that those days of magical accumulation of wealth are over; that this great fountain of affluence is drained comparatively dry; that fortunes are not now readily made in India; yet the Company, though they have lost their monopoly of trade, and their territories are laid open to the free observation of their countrymen, are in possession of the government with a revenue of twenty millions. But all this time, what has been doing with and for the natives. We shall see that anon; yet it may here be asked, What _could_ be doing? For what did men go to India? For what did they endure its oppressive and often fatal climate? Was it from philanthropical or personal motives? Did they seek the good of the Indians or their own? The latter, assuredly: and it was not to be expected that the majority of men should be so high-minded or disinterested as to seek the good of others at the expense of their own. The temptations to visit India were powerful, but not the less powerful were the motives to hasten away at the very earliest possible period.