Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/16

10 whose territory no European power had hitherto been suffered to erect a single bastion. Not permitted to have fortifications, the English were likewise prohibited from entertaining a military force sufficient to give umbrage to the government, but were allowed to maintain an ensign and 30 men to do honour to the principal agents; who, thus confined to commercial views, applied themselves with much industry to promote their own and the company's interests in trade. Englishmen were sent from Hughley to those parts of the province in which the most valuable commodities were produced: but as the number of factors employed by the company did not suffice to superintend in different places, the provision of such quantities of goods as were annually demanded, the greatest part of the purchases was managed at Hughley, where the principal agents contracted with merchants of the country, who, on receiving about one half of the value beforehand, obliged themselves under pecuniary penalties to deliver at fixed periods the goods for which they had contracted. The company being by these dispositions invested with a right in all the goods for which they had contracted, even before these goods were manufactured, gave the name of Investment to all their purchases in India.

These were the only methods of carrying on the trade with reasonable expectation of profit; but they rendered the English entirely dependant on the government of Bengal, who, either by seizing the goods which were provided, or by prohibiting them from being carried to the principal residence, from whence they were to be shipped, might at any time subject the company's estate to great detriment and loss: and of these risques the company were so apprehensive, that they kept their factories in Bengal dependant on the Presidency of Madrass; where they had a fort and garrison, to which, in cases of sudden emergency, the agents in Bengal were to apply for advice and assistance. Their trade, however, was carried on for some time without interruption, and with much success; but in a few years, when they had erected costly buildings, had accumulated large quantities of