With respect to the present state of our commerce with those countries, it is not enquired, and therefore not known, whether the Company exports the stipulated sum of British commodities or not; and it is still less known, whether the small quantity she hath exported of late is disposed of; or whether it remains in her warehouses abroad, to swell up the account of her stock; thus much however reason tells us, that the inhabitants of Bengal, who cannot procure the necessaries of life, millions having died of want, can but little afford to purchase foreign fopperies or superfluities. Nevertheless we have seen large cargoes of Indian manufactures imported this very year; but we are not to suppose, that these cargoes are the produce of willing industry; they are procured by force and compulsion; the artisan being held to work under the discipline of task masters, who deprive him of his labour before it is completed, at a price that will not afford him the means of living. Of the many markets that for ages had taken off the manufactures of Bengal, Europe is now the only one remaining; and this one market cannot be supplied without the application of force. How long force might supply the place of willing industry, we shall not pretend to determine; but one year more will discover the united effects of want of artisans, want of money, and Mharrattor incursions. And thus have we demonstrated the nature and condition of this Bengal government, together with the evils it hath caused to the country governed, not from a recital of disputed facts, but from principles universally understood and admitted. For every one, the least acquainted with the Company’s affairs, must know and will allow that the views, the interests, the powers and opportunities of her deputed government in Bengal are exactly such as we have described them; and upon this one undisputed _datum_ we have built our whole demonstration; the truth and justness of which every man is capable of trying and proving, by the touchstone of his own reason. For reason, without the aid of circumstantial proof, can judge whether the line of conduct which we have assigned to the government of Bengal, is fairly inferred and deduced from its evident and allowed principle of action: and common sense, unassisted by demonstration, will point out the effects that such conduct must operate on the interest of the country governed; and, if we farther advert to the length of time that this country hath been subjected to such operation, we shall nearly guess at its present state and condition.