Chap. VI. 1 PROGRESS OF THE COMPANY. 339
and salti)etre. Should any sui'plu.s money remain, it was to be employed in a.d mm. purchasing white sugar, cotton yarn, tm-meric, and bees'- wax, merely to fill up spare tonnage. In the two following years the amount of the investment was nearly the same; but in 1677-78 it rose to £100,000, and was still considered far from its maximum, as the factors were permitted to increase it by borrowing in 1680-81 it amounted to £150,000, and in the following season to £230,000, distributed as follows:— £140,000 to Cossimbazar, £14,500 to Patna, £32,000 to Balasore, £15,000 to Malda, and £12,000 to remain at HooMily. Hitherto Bengal had been subordinate to Fort St. George, but it was now considered of sufficient importance to constitute a distinct and independent agency. Mr. Hedges, who had been a meml^er of the management in England, was sent out with special powers to be agent and governor of the Company's affairs in Bengal. His establishment, however, appears to have been on a very humble scale, as his guard, restricted to twenty soldiers under " a corporal of approved fidelit}- and courage," were to peiform in addition the double duty of ]n-otecting the factory at Hooghly and acting against the interlojiers.
In consequence of the erection of Bengal into a separate agency, vessels Extent of were despatched direct from England to the Ganges, and on a scale which Beiig,ii. shows that the importance of the trade in this quarter was now duly appre- ciated. In 1682-83, one of the vessels carried thirty guns; another was of the size of 700 tons, which was rather unusual at this period. The agent was empowered to borrow £200,000, which, with the unemployed stock and credit of the former season, was expected to yield a pre.sent sum for investment of £350,000 ; and hoyies were held out that the stock of the ensuing season would amount to £600,000, principally in bullion. These hopes, however, were not realized, serious difficulties having arisen both at home and abroad — at home by the unexj^ected failure of .several large houses which used to sup])ly the Company with bullion for ex])ort ; and abroad by the loss of one of the outward bound ships with i.70,000 of bullion on board, the capture of Bantam liy the Dutch, and the imposition of new and heavier customs in Bengal, together with the discovery of irregularities in the Company's factories in that pro nce. In consequence of all these untoward events a panic began to prevail, and a run took place on the Company's treasury- threatening it with insolvency. Instead, state of th.. therefore, of providing foreign investments, the court resolved in the meantime LTi!"^* " to reserve all the produce of their sales for the pajTuent of their debts, and neither to send bullion to India nor make any dividend to their ]>roprietoi-s till these debts were licjuidated. With the view of facilitating this process of liqui- dation, all the settlements abroad were placed on the lowest possible scale ; and Bengal, which had begun to act as an independent agency, wa-s again made subordinate to Madras. Somewhat inconsistently, at the very thne when Benn-al was thus shorn of its independence, the court were seriously contemplatino- a great addition to its importance by endeavouring to actjuii-e possession of an
