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TRADE WITH

CHAP. XXVI.

The account in the Appendix is made in currentrupees, which, though occasionally varying invalue, may be taken in the whole term as worthtwo shillings sterling each. The excess of theimports of gold and silver into India and China by the Company and the Americans in the termamounted to twenty-eight million nine hundredand twenty-eight thousand seven hundred andeleven pounds. In the year 1820-21 the treasurecarried by the Americans to China is not inserted,and as their trade was as great in that as in theyears immediately before and after, we assumethat it amounted to one million one hundred andseventy-one thousand two hundred and eighty-nine pounds sterling, thus making the imports oftreasure thirty millions, or one million live hun-dred thousand pounds annually during the twentyyears.

An exciting effect must have been producedon the continental states of Europe by the returnof peace after a long period, in which they hadbeen precluded from any direct intercourse withIndia and China . They had been long indulgingin complaints at their exclusion from that in-tercourse, their imaginations had formed highexpectations of its benefits, and they were eagerto commence operations to secure some of thosebenefits. Neither their soil nor their industryfurnished equivalents for the productions of Asia ,