[13] 1st and 5th April, 1779.
ELEVENTH REPORT
OF THE
SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
ON
THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA.
WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE APPENDIX.
November 18, 1783.
ELEVENTH REPORT
From the SELECT COMMITTEE appointed to take into consideration the state of the administration of justice in the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and to report the same, as it shall appear to them, to the House, with their observations thereupon; and who were instructed to consider how the British possessions in the East Indies may be held and governed with the greatest security and advantage to this country, and by what means the happiness of the native inhabitants may be best protected.
Your Committee, in the course of their inquiry into the obedience yielded by the Company's Servants to the orders of the Court of Directors, (the authority of which orders had been strengthened by the Regulating Act of 1773,) could not overlook one of the most essential objects of that act and of those orders, namely, the taking of gifts and presents. These pretended free gifts from the natives to the Company's servants in power had never been authorized by law; they are contrary to the covenants formerly entered into by the President and Council, they are strictly forbidden by the act of Parliament, and forbidden upon grounds of the most substantial policy.