The Presidency accounted for this rise by observing that the price had before been _arbitrary_, and that the persons who purveyed for the Company paid no more than "what was _judged_ sufficient for the maintenance of the first providers." This fact explains more fully than the most labored description can do the dreadful effects of the monopoly on the cultivators. They had the _sufficiency_ of their maintenance measured out by the judgment of those who were to profit by their labor; and this measure was not a great deal more, by their own account, than about two thirds of the value of that labor. In all probability it was much less, as these dealings rarely passed through intermediate hands without leaving a considerable profit. These oppressions, it will be observed, were not confined to the Company's share, which, however, covered a great part of the trade; but as this was an article permitted to the servants, the same power of arbitrary valuation must have been extended over the whole, as the market must be equalized, if any authority at all is extended over it by those who have an interest in the restraint. The price was not only raised, but in the manufactures the quality was debased nearly in an equal proportion. The Directors conceived, with great reason, that this rise of price and debasement of quality arose, not from the effect of a free market, but from the servants having taken that opportunity of throwing upon the market of their masters the refuse goods of their own private trade at such exorbitant prices as by mutual connivance they were pleased to settle. The mischief was greatly aggravated by its happening at a time when the Company were obliged to pay for their goods with bonds bearing an high interest.