Newcastle coals at eight pence for eighty-two pounds; copper bolt and sheathing at thirty rupees per maund*; Hodgson's pale ale at twenty rupees per hogshead; lead at half its prime cost; the finest purpets so cheap that actually during the Burmese war cartridge bags for the artillery were made from them; speltre diminished from twenty-one rupees in 1822 to six rupees in 1829 per maund, leaving three years stock on hand unsaleable at any price; claret and champagne at from two to five rupees per dozen (!) perishable articles at a discount of fifty per cent. or totally unmarketable! Such has been the career of the free-trade to India,-thousands, alas! can testify as to the fidelity of my statement; yet the EastIndia Company are blamed for not competing in a trade which had more resemblance to the wildest lottery scheme ever invented than to the sober pursuits of commerce!†

:

Did the wary Americans compete with the free-trader? Far from it their trade with Calcutta was considerable up to 1819, in which year their imports were in value 9,562,000 rupees; and in 1827 only 2,100,000! Mr.Wilson in 1830, speaking of the continued decline in their trade with India, says, "whenever the export of indigo ceases, and the manufacture is now successfully prosecuted in the States, there will remain little temptation to America to maintain any commercial intercourse with India.”

* A maund is 82 lbs.

The reason why such a system was so long carried on, will be found in a small work which I published on the China Trade in February last.

According to a statement given in by Mr. Bracken to Parliament, the imports into Calcutta were in 1823, 1825, or 1826, less by upwards of one half what they amounted to in 1817 or 1818. Mr. Bracken says, that in 1814 the proportion of the trade of Great Britain with Calcutta, was about, and that, now it is about; but if the cotton manufactures and speltre, by which the Indians and Chinese have been thrown out of work be considered, there will have been no increase since the opening of the trade?

A decrease on three years of thirty-five thousand tons, shews the prudent character of the American in finding out what the free-traders are now learning, that a little trade with small profit is far better than a great trade with no profit.

Before proceeding to examine the imports into England from India, I give a condensed view of the East-India Company's exports to Calcutta, principally stores for their troops, in order to shew that they have left no means untried to advance the welfare of the British manufacturer. *

* Mr. Crawfurd describes the Company's as always having been a 'piddling commerce." By a Parliamentary return it appears, that in woollen goods alone the Company exported £13,000,000 worth from 1800 to 1810. Can the free trader shew as much since the last renewal of the Charter? The private trade exports of cloth of all sorts

I cannot avoid introducing here a few extracts from the testimony of gentlemen connected with the woollen trade.

Mr. Walford, in his evidence before Parliament in 1830, stated that "he has known the East-India Company to have made various experiments by purchasing articles, some at a higher, some at a lower price, with a view to push the manufactures of this country abroad;" that by "strictly examining the character of every article they pur

ehase,

I merely quote the foregoing that it may in some measure shew the falsity of the several statements which have been put forth respecting the Company's trade to India; and conclude with observing that under the system before described, it would have been the height of insanity for the Company to have competed with the free-trader.

It is with painful feelings that I turn to view the export trade of India to England,-a trade which (as the Court of Directors justly say)—" exhibits the gloomy picture of the effects of a commercial revolution productive of much present suffering to numerous classes in India; chase, the Company establish a character for British manufactures, while their attention is directed to economy, so long as they secure a superiority of the articles they are shipping: A bale of goods with their mark need never be opened." P. 657. Mr. Ireland, an extensive cloth manufacturer in Gloucestershire, said, "The Company buy by open competition, are just in their dealings, and give less trouble than individuals. Had it not been for the Company's trade last winter, some hundreds of our people must have starved." p. 604.

For the last six or eight years the Company have sent no goods to India for sale.

+ In 1794, before the British territories or community in the East were half their present size or number; before the native community had been so well prepared to receive our manufactures; before the invention of steam, the vast reduction in freight, and during the continuance of a terrible war, the exports of the EastIndia Company amounted to £2,924,829, nearly three million sterling!

From Wilson's External Commerce of Bengal. Parbury, Allen, and Co.

and hardly to be paralleled in the history of commerce,”England, I hesitate not to say, has displayed a niggard, selfish, and ungenerous course of treatment towards India in her commercial relations with that country; her incessant cry has been for facilities to export her steamwrought manufactures to Calcutta &c. at one or two per cent., while, in the tyrannous spirit of a conqueror, she imposes a duty of ten per cent. on the hand-wrought manufactures of the Hindoos, at the same time imposing onerous or prohibitory duties on her Sugar, Coffee, &c. Yet, let England beware let her recollect that a perseverance in this disgraceful policy lost her the United States of America, but I am anticipating my subject, let us see what has been the "steady progression," "devoid of monopoly fluctuation," of the free-trader in his imports from the whole eastern hemisphere, with all those facilities in his favour which I detailed at the commencement of this chapter. Mind I do not blame the free-trader for the decrease that has taken place,-I blame the Government and Parliament of this country, and I have scarcely words to express my contempt for those whose constant cry is give us for the people " a free-trade with the east," instead of petitioning Parliament, even tardily, to do justice to the impoverished Hindoos.

COFFEE IMPORTED by the PRIVATE TRADE from the EASTERN

In 1825 the import of coffee was only 2,782,376 lbs., and in 1821 little more than one million lbs. !

This diminution is very great; there was no competition by the East-India Company, for they have imported no coffee of late years, and have given every facility for its growth in their territories.

CARDAMOMS IMPORTED from the EASTWARD.

In the words of Mr. Crawfurd, "the reader will not fail to contrast this steady progression of legitimate commerce with the fluctuation always, and retrogression generally, of monopoly traffic."*

The import of Benjamin was

1815....lbs. 243,993 | 1819....lbs. 769,132 | 1827.. lbs. 51,197 1816...... 442,841 1820...... 966,981 1828

Total lbs. 686,834 Total lbs. 1,736,113

52,837

Total lbs. 104,034

Camphor is another instance of "steady progression :"