"ing less than our own commodities will pay for, "is the sure and only way for the nation to grow "rich."*

On the whole, then, it does not appear that the mass of the restrictions established in this country on the absolute licence of trade, should be regarded as exclusively the work of venality taking advantage of carelessness, or exercised iniquity circumventing unpracticed innocence. Not only the more candid, but also the more just, as well as by far the more useful plan, will be to consider them as having emanated from the imperfect knowledge and virtue of what, notwithstanding, was, in the main, both an informed and a public-spirited age; -to treat them as a system, in the creation of which, if interest and ignorance had a share, and in parts perhaps a considerable share, yet great ability also and patriotic principle expended no mean labour. Thus only shall we be enabled to appreciate them correctly; because thus only shall we apply ourselves to the task, not merely with an acuteness, but with a temper, worthy of our superior experience and refinement.

When this is once established as a general conclusion, it is not necessary to make out the premises in every specific instance. In order to render it probable, for example, that the institution and continuance of the East-India Company have,

* Considerations of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money.

on the whole, been the result of deliberate and unbiassed reflexion on the part of the legislature, it is not necessary to shew that the interest of that body has always been opposed by some rival interest before the public tribunal, or that their cause has been espoused in a decided manner by wise and impartial men. If the government and the nation have generally been induced, by whatever causes, to bestow an enlightened attention on the subject of commerce, the observance, in this particular case, of that ordinary custom, may be presumed till it shall have been disproved. In effect, however, it will appear from the ensuing narrative that the commercial system of the Company has been, for the most part, very fairly before the public; and that there has been no want, either of objection to excite to it the public regard, or of unprejudiced authority to determine and to justify the public decision in its support. It will, in short, appear that, one or two dark periods in the history of the Company excepted, the favour which they have usually enjoyed has been accorded by the judgment, not won from the ignorance or mental weakness, of their countrymen.

At their original establishment, indeed, the little objection which they had to answer was directed, rather against the Indian trade itself, than against the proposed mode of conducting it. Yet, even in this view, the measure has a certain character of deliberateness; nor can any thing be discovered in the history of the time, to justify an

opinion that this decried institution was the creature of ministerial intrigue. But, in order to throw greater light on the nature of the plan, it seems requisite to give, in this place, some general description of the circumstances under which it was originally framed; and, as this account must refer to a period preceding the first erection of the Company, it may serve as no improper introduction to the narrative which will presently follow.

The accession of Elizabeth to the English throne is the era of our entrance on an active and steady course of commerce. Previously to that period, the desolations of civil war, the mistaken foreign policy of some sovereigns, and the oppressive domestic government of others, had, in a great degree, frustrated this country of the benefits derivable from its natural advantages for the successful prosecution of trade and the advancement of manufactures. London is said to have possessed, in the year 1540, no more than four ships of above one hundred and twenty tons burden, exclusively of the navy royal. The merchants of the Hanse Towns, resident in that capital, were still privileged above the natives. Even up to the year 1552, these aliens engrossed a great part of the foreign trade of the kingdom; and all their imports and exports were made in foreign bottoms. At a still later period, we read that the Venetians sent their argosies to England,

laden with Turkish, Persian, and Indian merchandize.*

Elizabeth, urged by the necessity of securing herself against the efforts of the sovereigns whom her protection of the Protestant cause had rendered her enemies, seems early to have felt the importance of naval power; and, perhaps, not less from this motive than from a general regard for the welfare of her dominions, applied herself to the systematic encouragement of commerce. She set about the formation of a respectable navy, and excited her opulent subjects, after her example, to build ships. She negotiated with most of the princes and states of Europe, in favour of the commerce of her people. She devised every practicable regulation to promote and extend the trade and manufactures of the country; and she made it a particular object that both should be conducted by its own natives in preference to foreigners. The result was, that the commercial resources of England developed themselves with a rapidity truly wonderful. The scene might have reminded a fanciful spectator of one of those changes undergone by vegetable nature, when, after having slept in the indurated soil, under every appearance of hopeless barrenness, a few vernal days seem to awaken it at once into full blossom.

But neither this, nor any similar image, fut

* See Sir W. Monson's Naval Tracts.

nishes a real analogy to the event described. The course of material nature is constant amidst all its seeming capriciousness. Seasons return ;—the spring will come, though tardily, and the blossom, however reluctant, will expand at last. It does not appear to be thus with the human mind, whether we speak of men individually or collectively. Philosophers, indeed, reduce the progress of civilization to rule; and, in their ingenious but technical and meagre schemes, represent a people as passing, by a sort of necessary gradation, from seed-time to harvest, from the gloom and rigour of extreme barbarism to the flowing and joyous vintage of high refinement. But the history of the world furnishes us with few, if any, instances in which this fancy-picture has been verified;-few, even, in which a nation has made any considerable advances in the arts of civilized life by the spontaneous operation of its own energies. On the contrary, the effect has, in a great majority of cases, been produced by what, for any thing that appeared, was accident. Perhaps it has been owing to an intimacy, casually formed, with some polished people, who, in the character, either of friends, of masters, or of tributaries, have sealed the connexion by a communication of their luxuries and arts. Perhaps, it has been owing to the fortuitous rise of some statesman, capable, not only of commanding, but of humanizing a kingdom;-an enchanter, as it were, under whose step the sterile wilderness has