There are two further circumstances in this transaction which strongly mark its character. The first is, that this adventure to China was not recommended to them by the factory of Canton; it was dangerous to attempt it without their previous advice, and an assurance, grounded on the state of the market and the dispositions of the government, that the measure, in a commercial light, would be profitable, or at least safe. Neither was that factory applied to on the state of the bills which, upon their own account, they might be obliged to draw upon Europe, at a time when the Council of Bengal direct them to draw bills to so enormous an amount. The second remarkable circumstance is, that the Board of Trade in Calcutta (the proper administrator of all that relates to the Company's investment) does not seem to have given its approbation to the project, or to have been at all consulted upon it. The sale of opium had been adjudged to the Board of Trade for the express purpose of selling it in Bengal, not in China,--and of employing the produce of such sale in the manufactures of the country in which the original commodity was produced. On the whole, it appears a mere trading speculation of the Council, invading the department of others, without lights of its own, without authority or information from any other quarter. In a commercial view, it straitened the Company's investment to which it was destined; as a measure of finance, it is a contrivance by which a monopoly formed for the increase of revenue, instead of becoming one of its resources, involves the treasury, in the first instance, in a debt of two hundred thousand pounds. If Mr. Hastings, on the expiration of Mr. Mackenzie's contract, the advantages of which to the Company had been long doubtful, had put himself in a situation to do his duty, some immediate loss to the revenue would have been the worst consequence of the alleged depreciation; probably it would not have been considerable. Mr. Mackenzie's contract, which at first was for three years, had been only renewed for a year. Had the same course been pursued with Mr. Sulivan, they would have had it in their power to adopt some plan which might have secured them from any loss at all. But they pursued another plan: they carefully put all remedy still longer out of their reach by giving their contract for four years. To cover all these irregularities, they interest the settlement in their favor by holding out to them the most tempting of all baits in a chance of bills upon Europe.