1oo*] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1773.

finilier deiign, why not referve the quellion of right to its proper time, and then to give it a proper dil- cufiion. a

To this nothing was direftly anlivered. But government tool: great pains to diiplay its l-tindneis to the Company. 1t was (aid, that norwitlillanding the great lollies {uttered by their mifcondufl, which rendered them incapable of paying the annual ftipulation to the public, they now generoully fupplied them with a loan of near four times that {urn to preferve them from ruin, and would Ptill, from a tender con- iideration 0F the Company’s affairs, fullain an additional lols in their favour; it was therefore propoled, and agreed to, that as the Company had a flock of teas amounting to above 17,000,000 of pounds by them, and it would be greatly to their advantage to convert as much of it as they could into money, they fhould therefore be allowed to export any quantities of it they pleated, duty-free.

The refolutions lia- ving been reported in the Houfe and agreed to, a petition was prefented from the Ealt-India Company, in which they were complained of in the itrongelt terms, as unjult and injurious. They complain that the molt ma- terial articles of their propofitions are rejected; and reprelient, that

April 30th.

"when the loan which they have re-

quelted from the public is dilcharg- ed, it mull he unrealonable to re- quire any further terms upon t/sat account; that the limitation ofthe dividend to 7 per cent. after the diicltarge of the loan, and until the reduclion of the bond debt, is neither founded on any jull calcu- lation of their aEajrs, nor necef-

fary, either with refpect to their, credit, or that of the public, and that the (mall addition of one per cent. though of conlidcrable conl'e— quence to them, was too trifling in the amount, to caufe any mate- rial delay in the reduction of that debt ; that the hardlhip of this li- mitation is exceedingly aggravated, by a confideration of the great loffes which they, as proprietors, have fullained, and the expences they have incurred, in acquiring and fecuring the territorial reve- nues in India, at the rifque oftheir whole capital, from which the public had reaped fuch vall advan- tages, without any equivalent to themfelves ; and that they had only offered the propofals, which were now made the ground of thefe re- Ilrictive refolutions, upon the faith of thofe allhrances which they had received, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer coincided with them in his intentions.

They farther reprefented, that the limitation for fix years to their territorial pofleflions, was altoge-

‘ther arbitrary, as it may be con-

ltrued into a conclufive decifion againll them, in regard to thofe pofleliions to which they have an undoubted right; a right againfl: which no decifion exills, nor any formal claim has ever been made. They refufe to acquiefce in the pro- poled allotment of their {urplus profits; and infill: that fuch a clif- pofal of their property without their own content, is not warrantable by any pretenfions that have been formed againfi them; that when they offered a participation in a different proportion of the faid fur- plus, it was in a full perfualion that they might freely enjoy the remainder ; that the prefcribed li-

mitution,