which the traders penetrate into the islands of the
Archipelago, but to the nearest points, often does
not exceed nine or ten days. It is usually performed
with as much safety as expedition, notwithstanding
the real unskilfulness of the voyagers, a
fact which may teach us to moderate any prepossessions
we might entertain regarding the difficulties
which the early Hindus might have encountered
in carrying their religion to the Indian islands,
or in bringing the spices of the latter back to their
own country. The monsoons have always made
up, in some measure, to the orientals, for the want
of that science, ingenuity, invention, and intrepidity,
which have been in every age, more or less,
the birth-right of Europeans.
The trade of the Indians is chiefly confined to
the more western ports of the Archipelago, and
they are prevented from going to the eastern ports
by the competition of the Chinese, and by the European
monopoly of the spice trade, a trade which
probably, in other circumstances of it, often seduced
them as far as the Moluccas. The commodities
which they import are, besides, some of them
such as are not required in the central and eastern
islands. The import investments consist, besides
minor articles, of salt, tobacco, blue cotton cloths,
and cotton chintzes. The exports are some of the
most distinguished products of the Archipelago,
most of them, in all likelihood, the very same of
which the cargoes consisted seventeen centuries
back, as betehnut, damar, bees-wax, ivory, lignum-
aloes, Indian frankincense, cloves, nutmegs and
mace, black pepper, and tin. From the Malay
states on the south-west coast of the Peninsula next
to!Siam, and tributary to it, a considerable number
of elephants have been usually sent, which are of a
race highly esteemed, and thought not to be inferior
to the boasted breed of Siam itself. As the
benefits of the influence of the capital and enterprise
of Europeans begin to be felt in the carrying
and general trade of India, it is probable that much
of this particular traffic will decline, or be altogether
superseded, for it may be said, in a great
degree, to have long owed its existence, or continuance,
to the privilege which the unlawful exclusion
of Europeans confers upon it. Whether
it be superseded, or otherwise, however, it ought
not to be forgotten, is not the proper care of the
legislator, whose duty lies solely in seeing justice
done to all parties, and taking care that the natural
and wholesome influence of competition be not
obstructed by the impertinence of restriction, or
pretended regulation.
The Arabs formed, in the early times of oriental
commerce, the third link of that chain of commercial
voyages by which the ordinary commodities
of the Indian islands were transmitted to the
farthest nations of the west, thefourth link of that