Private. For Mr Cavendish’s eye alone.

Sir,

You were good enough on Sunday evening to say that a man who understood the godown business might do better on his own account than in another’s, and to ask me to set down what such a business would cost and what it would earn. I have done so below. I ask your pardon for the plainness of the paper and for the hand, which is my own, as I did not think it right to employ a clerk.

I. The Trade.

All Company opium, and the greater part of the indigo, saltpetre and piece-goods shipped from this port, must be landed, weighed, stored and released from a godown on the Strand frontage. There is no other frontage. The godowns are held by the Syndicate (of which more below) and let to the merchant houses, who let storage in turn to the Company’s factors and to private consignors.

II. Rents as they stand.

I set down the terms of three storage contracts now in force in Mr Surlish’s house. I have altered no figure.

The rates are agreed among the houses in the month of November and the Company ratifies them in December. A consignor who takes his business from one house to another is quoted the same rate by the second within the week. I have seen the letters.

III. What a house pays the Syndicate.

Mr Surlish holds Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 9 of the Syndicate at Rs 1,150 the month for all four, on a lease of seven years from 1813, when he was admitted a partner. He lets them at Rs 1,730 the month as above. The difference, less coolies, watchmen and the wharfage, is Rs 440 the month clear, or Rs 5,280 the year, on four buildings he does not own.

IV. The Allowance.

Every godown on the frontage carries a standing allowance of one and a half parts in the hundred upon opium for wastage in the handling, which is charged to the consignor and is not, in my experience of the tallies, wastage. I set this down because a new house that did not take the allowance would fill in a season.

V. What is wanted.

The Syndicate has no building vacant and does not sell. But the old Zorab lease on No. 9 falls in at the end of this month and the Syndicate’s secretary, Baboo Ramkanta Sett, has told me he would entertain a tenant of respectability who came recommended by a partner. A partner’s recommendation is, I believe, to be had.

Against which No. 9 let entire at the present rates yields Rs 760 the month, or Rs 9,120 the year, without the allowance. With it, more.

I would ask, sir, that this paper be shown to nobody, and that if you do not think well of it you will burn it. I have no other copy and I had no business to write it.

I have the honour to be, sir, your very obedient servant,

P. Cartwright

Monday night, the 10th.   Written again Tuesday, the 11th, as the first was not fit.