44) Empowering Every Subject
Of England To Trade To India Who Should Raise A Sum Of Money For The
Supply Of The Government In Proportion To The Sum He Should Advance,
And Each Subscriber Was To Have An Annuity After The Rate Of 8 Per
Cent.
Per annum, to commence from Michaelmas, 1698.
And his Majesty
was empowered to incorporate the subscribers, as he afterwards did,
and they were usually called the New East India Company, the old
company being allowed a certain time to withdraw their effects. But
the old company being masters of all the towns and forts belonging
to the English on the coast of India, and their members having
subscribed such considerable sums towards the two millions intended
to be raised, that they could not be excluded from the trade, the
new company found it necessary to unite with the old company, and to
trade with one joint stock, and have ever since been styled "The
United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies."
The company have a governor, deputy-governor, and twenty-four
assistants or directors, elected annually in April.
The East India Company export great quantities of bullion, lead,
English cloth, and some other goods, the product or manufacture of
that kingdom, and import from China and India tea, china ware,
cabinets, raw and wrought silks, coffee, muslins, calicoes, and
other goods.
Bengal raw silk is bought at very low prices there, and is very
useful in carrying on the manufactures of this kingdom.
China silk is of excellent staple, and comes at little above one-
third of the price of Italian Piedmont silk.
The China silk is purchased at Canton, but their fine silk is made
in the provinces of Nankin and Chekiam, where their fine
manufactures are carried on, and where prodigious quantities of raw
silk are made, and the best in all China.
The Royal African Company was incorporated 14 Charles II., and
empowered to trade from Sallee, in South Barbary, to the Cape of
Good Hope, being all the western coast of Africa. It carries no
money out, and not only supplies the English plantations with
servants, but brings in a great deal of bullion for those that are
sold to the Spanish West Indies, besides gold dust and other
commodities, as red wood, elephants' teeth, Guinea grain, &c., some
of which are re-exported. The supplying the plantations with
negroes is of that extraordinary advantage, that the planting sugar
and tobacco and carrying on trade there could not be supported
without them; which plantations are the great causes of the increase
of the riches of the kingdom.
The Canary Company was incorporated in the reign of King Charles
II., anno 1664, being empowered to trade to the Seven Islands,
anciently called the Fortunate, and now the Canary Islands.
They have a governor, deputy-governor, and thirteen assistants or
directors, chosen annually in March. This company exports baize,
kerseys, serges, Norwich stuffs, and other woollen manufactures;
stockings, hats, fustians, haberdashery wares, tin, and hardware; as
also herrings, pilchards, salted flesh, and grain; linens, pipe-
staves, hoops, &c. Importing in return Canary wines, logwood,
hides, indigo, cochineal, and other commodities, the produce of
America and the West Indies.
There is another company I had almost overlooked, called the
Hudson's Bay Company; and though these merchants make but little
noise, I find it is a very advantageous trade. They by charter
trade, exclusively of all other his Britannic Majesty's subjects, to
the north-west; which was granted, as I have been told, on account
that they should attempt a passage by those seas to China, &c.,
though nothing appears now to be less their regard; nay; if all be
true, they are the very people that discourage and impede all
attempts made by others for the opening that passage to the South
Seas. They export some woollen goods and haberdashery wares,
knives, hatchets, arms, and other hardware; and in return bring back
chiefly beaver-skins, and other skins and furs.
The last, and once the most considerable of all the trading
companies, is that of the South Sea, established by Act of
Parliament in the ninth year of the late Queen Anne; but, what by
reason of the mismanagement of its directors in 1720, the
miscarriage of their whale-fishery, and the intrigues of the
Spaniards, their credit is sunk, and their trade has much decreased.
I proceed, in the next place, to inquire what countries the
merchants of London trade to separately, not being incorporated or
subject to the control of any company.
Among which is the trade to Italy, whither are exported broad-cloth,
long-ells, baize, druggets, callimancoes, camlets, and divers other
stuffs; leather, tin, lead, great quantities of fish, as pilchards,
herrings, salmon, Newfoundland cod, &c., pepper, and other East
India goods.
The commodities England takes from them are raw, thrown, and wrought
silk, wine, oil, soap, olives, some dyer's wares, anchovies, &c.
To Spain the merchants export broad-cloth, druggets, callimancoes,
baize, stuff of divers kinds, leather, fish, tin, lead, corn, &c.
The commodities England takes from them are wine, oil, fruit of
divers kinds, wool, indigo, cochineal, and dyeing stuffs.
To Portugal also are exported broad-cloth, druggets, baize, long-
ells, callimancoes, and all other sorts of stuffs; as well as tin,
lead, leather, fish, corn, and other English commodities.
England takes from them great quantities of wine, oil, salt, and
fruit, and gold, both in bullion and specie; though it is forfeited,
if seized in the ports of Portugal.
The French take very little from England in a fair way, dealing
chiefly with owlers, or those that clandestinely export wool and
fuller's-earth, &c. They indeed buy some of our tobacco, sugar,
tin, lead, coals, a few stuffs, serges, flannels, and a small matter
of broad-cloth.
England takes from France wine, brandy, linen, lace, fine cambrics,
and cambric lawns, to a prodigious value; brocades, velvets, and
many other rich silk manufactures, which are either run, or come by
way of Holland; the humour of some of the nobility and gentry being
such, that although they have those manufactures made as good at
home, if not better than abroad, yet they are forced to be called by
the name of French to make them sell.
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