"3. (a) The dividend for years to remain fixed at ten per cent. The term should be such that at the end of it we may better be able to distinguish between the profits of the trade and the revenue, and likewise give proper encouragement to the Company in future.
"(b) The savings after payment of the dividend, and after properly providing for the cost of collection, and the payment of the troops, to be applied to a fund at the disposition of Parliament.
"(c) The increase of their trade and re-exportation to be encouraged by all possible means, in order to enable them to bring home the fruits of their possessions in India.
"(d)The powers of the direction at home and in India to be made more permanent, so as to reconcile the Government to the natives, and make the servants more honest and obedient.
"(e) A proper check to be considered to make the directors act honestly and give a fair account."
Alarmed at the consequences of their own temerity, the proprietors, as Shelburne had informed Chatham, resolved to treat. Early in January 1767 they began by stating the points on which, in their opinion, it was necessary to make an agreement with the Administration. But not a word appeared in the report of their Treasury Committee, appointed to examine these points, as to the concessions to be made to the State for the grant of the privileges which the Report recommended should be asked. Yet the Company was not acting without deliberation. It had secured a friend in Charles Townshend, who, regardless alike of the opinions of Chatham on Indian Government and of Shelburne on American taxation, had determined to conciliate the powerful Indian connection at home, and to obtain a revenue by once more attacking the distant American Colonies, the opposition of which, unwarned by recent events, he ventured to despise.
To rouse the spirit of the members of the House of Commons was the surest means, according to Chatham, of making an advantageous bargain with the Company. At his suggestion papers relating to India had been moved for
