interest out of the Company's treasury in Bengal.

That the said Warren Hastings, having in this manner purchased a
commodity for which he said there was no sale, and paid for it with
money which he was obliged to borrow at a high interest, was still more
criminal in his attempt, or pretended plan, to introduce it
clandestinely into China. That the importation of opium into China is
forbidden by the Chinese government; that the opium, on seizure, is
burnt, the vessel that imports it confiscated, and the Chinese in whose
possession it may be found for sale punished with death.

That the Governor-General and Council were well aware of the existence
of these prohibitions and penalties, and did therefore inform the
supra-cargoes in China, that the ship belonging to the said Henry Watson
would enter the river at China as an armed ship, _and would not be
reported as bearing a cargo of opium, that being a contraband trade_.

That, of the above two ships, the first, belonging to Cudbert Thornhill,
was taken by the French; and that the second, arriving in China, did
occasion much embarrassment and distress to the Company's supra-cargoes
there, who had not been previously consulted on the formation of the
plan, and were exposed to great difficulty and hazard in the execution
of their part of it. That the ship was delayed, at a demurrage of an
hundred dollars a day, for upwards of three months, waiting in vain for
a better market. The factory estimate the _loss_ to the Company,
including port charges, demurrage, and factory charges allowed the
captain, at sixty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-three dollars,
or about twenty thousand pounds sterling.

That the Company's factory at China, after stating the foregoing facts