observe here, that this practice seems to us an infringement of our 
original compact, by which we always understood that we were to 
have enjoyed the common benefits of the service as we advance in 
rank: until of very late years, it is well known, that the common 
chance for these emoluments formed one of those benefits it was 
stipulated we should enjoy. 
Besides the emoluments of the service there is no certain mode 
in this country of acquiring a rupee; for as to trade, Gentlemen, 
we believe you will allow, from the observation of many years, 
that it is in general a much more probable mode of sinking a for- 
tune than of acquiring one: the road that has led nine men to rain 
and one to fortune, is not a road that a prudent man will fall into; 
and we believe, Gentlemen, that this may justly be said of mer- 
chandizing, from the general experience of it: it is not our business 
to point out the causes of it; nor should we have touched thus 
lightly on the subject, but that it is well known the free liberty of 
trade in any part of the Company’s limits is held out as a great 
object: now you must well know, Gentlemen, that however advan- 
tageous what is called the free liberty of trade may have proved 
to some of the crowd of free merchants, free mariners, and unli- 
censed interlopers, whose profits, it must be observed, have chiefly 
arisen from their commission as factors, from which we are chiefly 
precluded by the uncertainly of our residence; we repeat, that 
whatever this free liberty of trade may have been to those persons, 
it is notorious that, to the servants of the Company, restricted in 
their residence, and liable at every moment to be ordered away 
from their private concerns, it has proved only a free liberty to 
ruin themselves, which too many have unfortunately embraced. 
