nefifc, We do not, indeed, avow these to be our express
motives, but the effects are, virtually the very
same as if we did. While other nations are enacting
laws for the direct encouragement of an Indian
trade, the tendency of all ours that relate to it is
to restrict it, and every step towards its enlargement
seems conceded by the legislature with as
much reluctance as if its patriotism was engaged
in stemming the invasion of some great
moral or physical evil; making incursions upon
the state. We are, notwithstanding this, the nation
fittest of all others for engaging in the trade,
and this is the moment of all others when a free
intercourse with India is most necessary, to us.
The people naturally and necessarily, fittest to
undertake the most distant and difficult of all
commercial enterprises, the Indian commerce* is
that nation, which, by the superiority of its maritime
skill, and the extent of, its capital, can, conduct
them most cheaply, can afford to give the best
prices to the people of India for their commodities,
and sell them at the lowest price to the, people of
Europe. None of the maritime states,of the Continent
of Europe are at present in a condition to engage
in the commerce of the Indies, and it is, indeed,
making a doubtful exception in favour of Holland,
probably never were in a condition to carry
on any thing better than a small traffic in luxuries*
That they are not at present, at least, ripe for the
Indian trade, is sufficiently evinced from the example
of Holland. Although possessed of the finest colonies
ih India, and although her national shipping
be encouraged by large protecting duties on foreign
vessels, still thefree traders of Britain, and the Americans,
conduct almost the whole intercourse between
the mother country and these colonies. In the
China trade, although the teas imported into Holland
by Americans pay double duties, still scarcely
a ton of Dutch shipping is engaged in the Chinese
trade ; and Holland, as well, indeed, as almost all
continental Europe, is supplied with tea, the greatest
article of the commerce of India, by the Americans.
I think it highly probable, indeed, that the
Americans themselves, with their inadequate capital,
would scarcely have adventured, or, at least,
adventured to any: extent, in the India trade, had
not the exclusion from it of the free capital of this
country acted as a powerful bounty to induce them.
They are now, however, in fair possession of by far
the most valuable part of it, and as they are the
only people that stand any chance with us, it will
be matter of instruction to institute a short .comparison
into our respective capacities of conducting
it in a state of free trade on both sides, and in a
fair and amicable competition. The block of an
American ship is cheaper than that of an English
vessel, at the first cost; but this is compensated by
VOL. III. - T