ABSTRACT
The internal trade of India still languished under the obnoxious transit duties which had been handed down from the preceding century. It will be remembered that the East India Company first obtained their footing in the country by an exemption of their export and import trade from those transit duties, to which the internal trade of the country was subjected. And it will also be remembered that when the servants of the Company claimed this exemption for their own private trade, Nawab Mir Kasim in a fit of noble generosity abolished all transit duties in Bengal, and that generosity cost him his throne. When at last the East India Company became the undisputed masters of Bengal in 1765, the time came for them to follow the example set by Mir Kasim, and to relieve the internal trade of India from those duties which repressed it. But the duties brought a revenue, however small, and the East India Company were slow to part with any portion of their revenues.
