the facts, which may have been more or less distorted in the contradictory allegations of the opposite parties, before we proceed to a discussion of the inferences deduced from them. But to obtain this preliminary knowledge was, before the publication of the present work, an enterprize of no inconsiderable labour. The Abbé Raynal, it is true, had published about the year 1774, his Philosophical and Political History,' containing a short and masterly account of the commercial relations of India with the principal nations of Europe; but, besides that the documents from which he composed this compendium were often inaccurate, his information reaches no farther than 1778; so that the history of the last thirty years, a period the most instructive and important that has occurred in the whole annals of our trade, was still wanting: and Mr. Macpherson has undertaken to supply the deficiency. The task, we think, could not have fallen into better hands.

Of the plan and execution of the present volume, it would not be in our power to give a more concise or accurate description than that which is contained in the following extracts from the author's preface.

Though the India trade of the ancients was so very different from that of the moderns, that it may seem scarcely necessary to connect them, I have thought that a very brief sketch of it, prior to the famous voyage of Gama, would be a proper introduction to the work, and render it somewhat more complete within itself.

Some may perhaps think, that the history of the commerce of our own country with India is all that can be interesting to a British reader, and that the history of the India trade of the European continental nations is superfluous. But, as the great use of history is to teach by example, the knowledge of the past being the only guide we can have in forming a judgment concerning the future, it is of great importance to know the events, which have promoted the prosperity, or brought on the decline, of the India trade of all the nations of Europe, who have entered into it.

The India trade of Portugal, conducted, without any knowledge of the principles of commerce, for the sole account of the sovereign, in subservience to a sanguinary system of conquest, rapine, and persecution, and liable to be deranged by the caprices of a rapid succession of ignorant, arbitrary, and avaricious Viceroys, is particularly worthy of attention, as holding out a most important lesson to every nation connected with India, and most especially to this nation, whose India company, by means infinitely more just and honourable, have acquired a much more compact, and, we may hope, more permanent, empire, than the Portugueze possessed in the most splendid period of their domination.

The history of the India trade of France and some other countries shows the fatal consequence of commercial companies depending for their pecuniary resources on the bounty or favour of government, and especially

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especially of an absolute government, and being subject to the interference and direction of such a government.

'The East-India Company of this country have risen, from a very small beginning, through innumerable hardships and distresses at home and in India, to a height of opulence and power, which has made them the admiration and envy of the nations. In tracing their progress I have endeavoured to lay before the reader every important event, which has obstructed or promoted their prosperity: and, as the facts I have narrated rest upon the unquestionable authority of original records and official documents, I trust they may be confidently referred to by every enlightened politician and merchant, who may wish to appreciate the political and commercial importance of the greatest commercial company that ever existed in any age or country.'-Pref. pp. ii, iii.

In order to make the reader acquainted with the claims and the proposals of the opponents of the company, and of the arguments which have been adduced for and against the justice and policy of conducting the trade under the management of a joint-stock company, invested with a modified exclusive privilege, I have endeavoured to lay before him a fair abridged review, or abstract, of what has been said on both sides of this important controversy, which forms a proper sequel to the historical narrative. I foresee that the advocates for open trade will accuse me of partiality to the company. But I can very sincerely declare, that, if any such partiality exists, it has been produced in my mind by a strict attention to facts, and a careful examination of the arguments on both sides, which have led to a conviction, contrary to the opinion I entertained many years ago, that an abolition, or even a diminution, of the commercial or political privileges of the East-India Company would deprive this empire of a great part, perhaps the whole, of the valuable trade, carried on by them with such distinguished preeminence over the East-India trade of all other nations, and would go far to destroy that mutual dependence of the several branches of the legislature, which is esteemed the great perfection of the British constitution.'-p. iv.

The accounts contained in the Appendix comprehend a thesaurus of unquestionable information, which ought to be the foundation of all arguments concerning the India trade, and they are presented in a very compendious form, for the use of those who desire to think for themselves.

The map, which accompanies this work, has been constructed under my own immediate direction, and contains every oriental country and place mentioned in it, except some small forts on the island of Bombay, and two or three places, of which the position is now unknown.

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Though the work, which I now presume to lay before the public, is compressed into one moderate-sized volume, I have employed, in obtaining and digesting the materials of it, all the time I could spare from other avocations during a considerable number of years, or rather, in some degree, during the greatest part of my life-time; as commercial history has occupied a good deal of my attention, ever since I have

been

been convinced that mankind are much more deeply interested in contemplating the progress of industry, civilization, social order, comfortable subsistence, and happiness, which in every part of the world go hand-in-hand with well-directed commerce, than in studying the revo lutions of empire, or the miseries brought upon the human race by the sanguinary exploits of conquerors. In noticing the time employed upon the work, I do not propose to make the reader expect a finished or elegant performance, but merely to show that it is not one of the crude publications, which are got up in a hurry, and obtruded upon the world with scarcely any attention to the authenticity of facts.'P. v, vi.

When we say that this design has been fairly executed, and that it is comprised within the compass of a single quarto volume, we presume that we need not offer any apology for abstaining from an attempt to lay before our readers a regular abstract of a series of facts already so closely condensed. The necessity of such an abstract is, indeed, in the present case, wholly superseded by the full and valuable index with which we are already supplied by Mr. Macpherson. We shall therefore content ourselves with giving a mere outline of the author's very elaborate history; with tracing the channels through which the stream of Asiatic commerce has, at different periods, been poured into Europe; and with marking the obstacles by which, from time to time, the deviations of its current have been occasioned. We trust that even such an imperfect summary will be of some use in preparing our readers for that examination of the controversy to which the author's whole narrative is, in point of present interest, subordinate and introductory. The Arabians are probably the earliest merchants whose transactions appear on any record, since it was to a company of Ishmaelites come from Gilead with their camels, bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt,' that Joseph, as we learn from the 37th chapter of Genesis, was sold by his brethren. The spicery conveyed by this caravan may possibly have been some article of Arabian growth, and cannot prove that the Sabæans had already acquired such nautical skill as to import from the coast of Coromandel, or Ceylon, or from still more distant islands, those rare and valuable spices, of which, at a much later period, their queen composed her present to King Solomon; but that these people have been at all times distinguished for mercantile enterprize, may be clearly shewn by comparing the book of Job, or the Chronicles of the reign of Solomon, with the testimonies of modern travellers. The Sabæans had establishments in Africa; they supplied to Tyre and Sidon those articles of eastern growth which were thence communicated to Carthage, and to all the coasts of the Mediterranean; and they continued to be the commercial

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mercial agents of Egypt, until the subjugation of that country by the Romans; after which the Egyptian Greeks were induced, by the prospect of supplying so large an empire, to attempt a direct trade to India; and having subsequently discovered the periodical recurrence of the monsoons, pursued it to such an extent as to render Alexandria the great emporium of Europe.

Still, however, the Arabians continued, by means of the Persian Gulph, of the Euphrates, and of the caravans, to preserve their intercourse with the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor, and to share the market of Constantinople with the merchants of Boukaria, (the ancient Seres,) through whose agency the produce of India has, in all ages, been conveyed to Europe by the way of the Caspian and Euxine seas.

The enthusiasm inspired by Mahomet converted the Arabians into a nation of military apostles, whose successive conquests furnished a succession of armed proselytes sufficiently numerous to extend and to confirm their empire, and at the same time to ingross the entire commerce of Asia and Africa, as well as of a considerable part of Europe. They were complete masters of the Mediterranean; their commercial navy was spread over the whole expanse of the Indian ocean; and its shores were generally covered by their factories, and subjected to their influence. Even when the fruits of their unparalleled valour had been torn from them; when the Moorish power was extinct in Spain; and when the throne of the Caliphs had been overturned by the Turks; their commercial preponderauce still remained to them, not only over a great part of Africa, but even in the most distant parts of India, where the general prevalence of their language still attests the almost boundless expansion of their mercantile industry.

To this singular people it must be confessed that Europe owes considerable obligations. Though prevented by the genius of their religion, and perhaps by that of their language, from availing themselves of the models of ancient Greek literature and eloquence, they adopted from Greece, and improved many useful arts and sciences which they introduced into their Spanish schools, from whence the neighbouring nations derived their first knowledge of chemistry, and of algebra, and some other branches of the mathematics. The Turkish, and other barbarous tribes, who inherited the name and the religious tenets of the real Saracens, were only conspicuous for their stupid fanaticism; but even that fanaticism was perhaps eventually advantageous to the western world, by provoking the crusades. By means of those distant expeditions, geography, navigation and astronomy, could not but make some progress; some refinement of manners must have been introduced amongst the crusaders by their contact with the Greeks at the imperial court of Constantinople;

Constantinople; the knowledge of many new comforts and luxuries must have resulted from their campaigns; and their conquests in Syria, a country at that time connected in trade with the richest nations of the East, gave considerable extension to the commerce of the Genoese and Venetians. Even after the expulsion of the Christians from Jerusalem, towards the close of the 12th century, St. Jean d'Acre long continued to be the centre of the Indian trade with the Mediterranean, a trade which was afterwards divided between Constantinople and Alexandria.

Respecting the nature or extent of this trade at different periods, we know so little, that even the following slight notices may perhaps be worth recording. Pliny (c. xii. § 41. 18.) estimates the sum paid to India, to the Seres, and to the Arabians by the Roman empire, at 100,000,000 of sesterces (above 800,000l. sterling,) wholly for articles of luxury, such as silks, pearls, and spices, particularly cinnamon, of which enormous quantities were burned at funerals; insomuch that Nero is said to have reduced to ashes a whole year's supply of that article in honour of his wife Poppaa.. An estimate formed from such data cannot inspire much confidence; but as it is plain that Pliny did not mean to underrate the truth, and as Rome had at that time reached the height of its opulence, we may safely assume that the usual consumption of the Roman empire did not, at any time, surpass the amount which he has assigned to it: yet it is probable that the general demand for articles of India produce, and particularly spices, during the 14th and 15th centuries exceeded the alleged expenditure of the mistress of the world, and the extravagance of imperial luxury. Whilst, from the scarcity of the precious metals, wheat, wool, and other necessary articles performed, in many parts of Europe, the offices of money, spices also were employed for the same purpose; a strong proof of their almost universal use. Thus, in France, the salaries and fees of judges are still called épices, though no longer paid in kind. Spices and wine were equally employed in medicine and in cookery; and are always mentioned together by our old historians and romance writers. The commerce of Asia, therefore, afforded the most general articles of exchange in the trade of Europe, and became the source of the vast wealth accumulated by the Genoese and Venetian republics. About the year 1420, Venice was able to coin annually at its mint 1,000,000 of golden ducats; to pay to England a balance of 100,000 ducats, in return for the wool, which after being manufactured at Florence, was exported to the Levant, and to employ 500,000 ducats, besides various articles of merchandize, in investments in the ports of Egypt and Syria.

Hitherto the Spanish peninsula had been scarcely connected, either

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