6oo A. D. 1777. 



1777, January 3'' — Tlie Eaft India company liaving now paid up the 

 whole of the money advanced to them by government in the year i 773, 

 together with the intereft on it, they were confequently at hberty, agree- 

 able to the adt of parliament, [13 Ceo. Ill, c. 64] to raife their dividend 

 from Jix to /even per cent : and they accordingly declared their half- 

 yearly dividend to be three and a half-^tr cent. 



The French private merchants in Bengal had carried on their trade, 

 after the fufpenfion of their company's exclufive privilege, on paying the 

 fame duties which had formerly been paid by the company. But in 

 April 1776 the governor-general and council of Bengal direded their 

 revenue officers to charge them, as individuals, with four per cent on 

 the amount of their invoices, on all goods except foreign fait, on which 

 all perfons, whether companies or individuals were to pay 10 rupees for 

 every 100 maunds. 



Mr. Chevalier, a principal French merchant, remonftrated againfl 

 this regulation, and urged that the duties of tivo and a balfpev cent had 

 been paid with great exadnefs by the French merchants at Chandena- 

 gore according to immemorial ufage and the privileges of their nation. 

 The other French merchants, and alfo the Dutch and Danifli private 

 traders, joining in the application, the governor-general and council de- 

 termined, as it was an objed of no great confequence, to let the goods 

 of French private merchants pafs on a duty of two and a half per cent, 

 ftill referving their right to four per cent, when they fhould think pro- 

 per to claim it (24'" March). 



February 21" — Sir Jofeph Yorke, the Britifh ambaflador to Holland, 

 had prefented feveral memorials to the States-general, complaining of 

 the favour and countenance {hown by the Dutch to the Americans in 

 the Wefl-Indies : and he now again prefented one, complaining in the 

 ftrongefl terms of the governor of S'. Euftathius, a Dutch ifland in the 

 Wefl-Indies, who from his fort had returned the falute of an American 

 fhip, and infifling on a formal difavowal of fuch proceedings, and 

 the recall of the governor. In about five weeks thereafter the 

 Dutch ambaflador at London gave in an anfwer, wherein the States- 

 general exprefsly difavowed the condudl of their governor, whom they 

 had ordered home to lay an account of his condudl before them. They 

 alfo declared, that they had fent repeated orders to all their governors 

 in the Weft-Indies, enjoining a ftridl obfervance of their placards 

 againfl furnifliing military ftores to the Americans. The Dutch traders 

 in the Weft-Indies continued, notwithftanding, to pay no attention to 

 any orders, which they thought contrary to their own intereft. Neither 

 is it probable, that their government ever intended, that they fliould be 

 ftridlly obferved. 



Mr. Hartley, having in April 1773 obtained the king's patent for 

 fourteen years for his invention of a method of fecuring buildings 



