cable the continuance of such measures as are now taken by the Company for the relief of the British manufacturer.

The speculations of individuals might, no doubt, be hazardous and irregular, and generally ruinous, perhaps, whenever they were legal; but, in either case, the trade of private indviduals, through indirect channels, would necessarily entail the introduction of inferior and objectionable teas into the British market, and thus, by discrediting the article, reduce the consumption, and finally bring ruin and disorder into that trade, in which they had so unworthily participated.

To enable the Company to sustain, in the manner they do at present, the difficulties attending the maintenance of a commercial intercourse with China, they must be allowed the fair advantages of that intercourse.

If private ships, on the contrary, fitted out from British ports, are allowed to navigate directly to and from the Eastern Islands, where Chinese vessels and Chinese colonists are every where to be found, they will certainly succeed in some degree, and possibly in a very great degree, in securing to themselves a participation in that trade, which has been heretofore exclusively confined to the port of

Canton*. The article which they will be enabled to procure, will, most probably, be neither so good, nor so suitable to our taste, as that imported direct from China; but as it will have been procured under an evasion of a considerable portion of the Chinese export duties, and sold, possibly, under an entire evasion of the English import duties, the Company's regular and lawful trade in the same article must necessarily be undermined by such a competition, as far as it may extend.

As the experiment has never yet been tried, it is impossible to say how far it would prove successful, how far, in short, it would be practicable, to supply the British market with

It has already been observed, that the question of allowing British private ships to frequent the port of Canton, solely with a view to the carrying trade with the Continent of Europe, was not in contemplation when this paper was written. It may readily be conceded, that this question is not open to all the objections which have been made to the introduction of changes of a more extended character-but it certainly is to many of them; quite sufficiently so, to make it incumbent on its advocates to make out a very strong case indeed in favor of the experiment, besides acquiescing in such additional safeguards, as might in such cases be required, for the security of the Direct Trade;-a benefit in possession, of infinitely too great value to be hazarded for the sake of any problematical advantages.

Chinese produce by indirect channels, even if opened by us to private adventurers in the freest manner.

It is most probable, however, that the supply, though very prejudicial in its effects to the Company's interests and arrangements, would be but inconsiderable and contemptible in itself. The advantage to the individual trader would, almost in any case, be but small and precarious; while the injury to the Company and to the regular China trade (and consequently, as has already been shewn, to the nation at large) would be certain, and also, possibly, of serious magnitude*.

* This last position has been stated thus strongly, under an impression, that were the private trader permitted to have access to any port where cargoes of teas are procurable, the temptation excited by the present high duties, would be such as to render it impossible wholly to prevent the subsequent clandestine introduction of such teas into England :-but should this risk be determined, by competent judges, not to be material, the objections above stated would, of course, be lessened in the same proportion.

A a

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

UPON THE

HINA

TRADE,

Written in 1813*.

ALMOST the only argument which has been urged, with any degree of plausibility in favor of the opening of the China Trade, is drawn from the fact, that a considerable trade has been actually carried on to China till very lately by the Americans.

To this it may be replied, in addition to what has been already observed, that there is in reality no similarity between the two cases. The English are a great and powerful nation;

*These Remarks were written in illustration of the subject of the preceding "Considerations;" but the passing of the charter, in the mean while, having apparently set the question at rest, it seemed at that time unnecessary to pursue it any further.

the Americans, as far as the Chinese are acquainted with them, are the reverse of this, and, indeed, they are as yet scarcely recognised in China as a nation at all.

Our decided commercial preponderance, the fame of our conquests and military resources, our handsome and well appointed merchantmen, and our numerous and powerful ships of war, all conspire to render us the chief, if not the sole objects of jealousy. As long as a good understanding continues to subsist with the English, other foreigners, who visit the port of Canton, are allowed to participate in the trade with little notice or interruption; but whenever the English are at variance with the government, it has been found that the rights and convenience of other foreigners have been but little regarded.

If the Chinese (the mandarins more especially, and others not immediately connected with the trade) are thus so apt to consider all foreigners in the aggregate, and to overlook those national distinctions which appear so obvious to us, it is not surprising that they should be peculiarly liable to do so in the case of ourselves and the Americans, between whom, in fact, scarcely any such distinctions exist.