Mr. Law, Chief of Patna, being examined on the effect of that monopoly, delivered his opinion, that with regard to the Company's _trade_ the monopoly was advantageous, but as sovereigns of the country they must be losers by it. These two capacities in the Company are found in perpetual contradiction. But much doubt may arise whether this monopoly will be found advantageous to the Company either in the one capacity or the other. The gross commodity monopolized for sale in London is procured from the revenues in Bengal; the certain is given for the hazardous. The loss of interest on the advances, sometimes the loss of the principal,--the expense of carriage from Patna to Calcutta,--the various loadings and unloadings, and insurance (which, though borne by the Company, is still insurance),--the engagement for the Ordnance, limited in price, and irregular in payment,--the charge of agency and management, through all its gradations and successions,--when all these are taken into consideration, it may be found that the gain of the Company as traders will be far from compensating their loss as sovereigns. A body like the East India Company can scarcely, in any circumstance, hope to carry on the details of such a business, from its commencement to its conclusion, with any degree of success. In the subjoined estimate of profit and loss, the value of the commodity is stated at its invoice price at Calcutta. But this affords no just estimate of the whole effect of a dealing, where the Company's charge commences in the first rudiments of the manufacture, and not at the purchase at the place of sale and valuation: for they [there?] may be heavy losses on the value at which the saltpetre is estimated, when, shipped off on their account, without any appearance in the account; and the inquiries of your Committee to find the charges on the saltpetre previous to the shipping have been fruitless. BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN INDIA. The other link by which India is bound to Great Britain is the government established there originally by the authority of the East India Company, and afterwards modified by Parliament by the acts of 1773 and 1780. This system of government appears to your Committee to be at least as much disordered, and as much perverted from every good purpose for which lawful rule is established, as the trading system has been from every just principle of commerce. Your Committee, in tracing the causes of this disorder through its effects, have first considered the government as it is constituted and managed within itself, beginning with its most essential and fundamental part, the order and discipline by which the supreme authority of this kingdom is maintained.