last two or three years, of chartering old ships from voyage to voyage.
Your Memorialists cannot enter into speculations as to what might have been the extent of the Company's trade if continued. They are fully satisfied that it must have been carried on upon a scale of great magnitude; but this must be mere matter of conjecture. It is by reference only to the past, which is capable of being ascertained, that the loss of your Memorialists can be estimated, and not by surmising a state of things which has no existence.
Your Memorialists have not hitherto proposed any particular scale of compensation, conceiving it to be more respectful to your Honorable Court to await a suggestion from them, and satisfied, from the scale of pensions granted to your Home Establishment, of the desire of the Court to relieve those who have suffered from the consequences of the abolition of the Company's trade.
The subject, however, having been referred to your Honorable Court with the favourable recommendation of the Proprietors, your Memorialists beg respectfully to present their case before your Honorable Court, with an earnest hope that they may be compensated upon the only principle which can afford them adequate relief, viz., by grant of pensions to the Commanders and Officers who have served the Company. Your Memorialists therefore beg respectfully to submit to your Honorable Court a scale of compensation, which has been prepared with an anxious desire to preserve the utmost moderation.
Your Memorialists are aware that a scale of allowance has been previously prepared, slightly differing from that now submitted. The alterations your Memorialists have made are in favour of the Junior grades of the service, upon which the loss will fall heavily, while the compensation proposed is not considerable. Upon a point so deeply affecting them, your Memorialists feel assured that their suggestion will be received with a favourable consideration, and that your Memorialists will experience at the hands of your Honorable Court that liberality which has ever characterised the conduct of the Honorable Company towards its Officers.
And your Memorialists, etc., etc.
(Signed) George Probyn,
Chairman of the Committee of Commanders
and Officers.
London, 30th July, 1834.
