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Rates of Pilotage for the Port of Baltimore.......
Lights in the neighborhood of Gottenburg.....

STATISTICS OF POPULATION.

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568

Census of each County of the State of New York in 1830 and 1840..................................................... 100
Census of each Town and County of Massachusetts in 1840....

101

Census of each Town and County of Connecticut in 1830 and 1840.
Census of each County of Maryland in 1830 and 1840...

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Census of each Town and County of New Hampshire in 1830 and 1840........................................
Population and Productions of each County of Indiana in 1840....
Population of the eighteen Provinces of China......

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Circulation of the Bank of England in February of each year, from 1760 to 1841.... 282
Amount of Capital, date of Charter, and expiration of all the Incorporated Bank-

ing Companies of New York........

476

Bank of England-Quarterly Average, ending February, 1841..
Statistics of the Free Banks of the State of New York..

477

478

Proportions of Capital to Loans, and Specie to Circulation, of all Chartered Banks
in the State of New York, from 1837 to 1841.......

480

Resources and Liabilities of the Chartered Banks of the State of New York, for
1840 and 1841......

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Classes of Hazards and Rates of Premiums against loss by fire in the city of New
York.....

185

Statistics of Insurance in Massachusetts, for 1840....

489

Dividends of the Atlantic Marine Insurance Company, New York, from 1830 to
1840......

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Table of the rates of Insurance of $100 on a single life.......

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STATISTICS OF COINAGE.

Operations of the United States Mint in 1840...

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Coinage at the Mint of the United States at Philadelphia in the year 1840...
Deposits of Gold for Coinage at the Mint of the United States, Philadelphia, 1840... 384
Annual amounts of deposits of Gold for coinage at the Mint of the United States
and branches.......

384

Deposits of Silver for coinage at the Mint of the United States, Philadelphia, in
1840.........

385

Amount of coinage at the Branch Mints in the year 1840..

385

Amount of deposits for coinage at the Branch Mints in the year 1840.....
Coinage of the U. S. Mint for each successive period of ten years, from the com-
mencement of its operations, etc...

385

386

Light Sovereigns.................

387

RAILROAD AND CANAL STATISTICS.

Number of Railroads in the U. States, miles in operation, total number of miles, etc. 481
Erie Canal Navigation in 1840......

481

Amount of Tonnage on the Erie Canal, from 1835 to 1840...

482

Number of Lockages at Schenectady for each month of the season of 1840..........
Statistics of the Utica and Schenectady Railroad....

482

482

Opening of the New York Canals in each year, from 1827 to 1840.....

483

Cost, Revenue, and Expenditures of the Pennsylvania Canals and Railroads.....
Cost of Railroads completed in the State of New York........

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MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATIONS.

Syllabus of the Lectures before the New York Mercantile Library Association for
January and February, 1841....

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Twentieth Annual meeting of the New York Mercantile Library Association....... 182
Eighteenth Annual Report of the Philadelphia Mercantile Library Company..
Officers of the Philadelphia Mercantile Library Company for 1841.

First Annual Report of the Baltimore Mercantile Library Association....
Officers of the Baltimore Mercantile Library Association for 1841..
Officers of the New York Mercantile Library Association for 1841..
Donations to the New York Mercantile Library Association..........

Our Fourth Volume-A Few Words to the Public.......

To Readers and Correspondents-The Book Trade...
Note the Article on the Cotton Trade......

Note to the Article on Imprisonment for Debt....

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HUNT'S

MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1841.

ART. I.-EAST INDIA, AND THE OPIUM TRADE.

In the course of a few months, the fate of the British expedition against China will be decided. We think that a slight examination will be sufficient to induce every man whose feelings are not warped by national prejudice, to conclude that, however artfully the pleadings may be constructed, and however adroitly extraneous interests may be interwoven, the question at issue is, whether China shall be allowed the right of admitting into her ports the articles which she requires for home consumption, and of rejecting such as she may think injurious. In what way are the British possessions in India likely to be affected by the operations of the Chinese expedition? In what way is the attitude which the British government has lately assumed towards the Celestial court, induced by the relations which exist between the Indian colonies and the mother country? There can be very little doubt that, on the one hand, a discomfiture before Canton would materially shake the British establishment on the Carnatic, while the defeat of a Chinese army, and the humiliation of the imperial authority, would be the consummation of a system which would erect over the Asiatic continent the paramount authority of the English queen. But we believe that the connection which exists between the commercial relations of the East India Company, and the position which Great Britain has assumed towards the Chinese government, is far less distinctly understood. We think that it can be shown, that through the immense salaries and the inveterate absenteeism of the dependents of the East India Company, upwards of £6,000,000 sterling are annually transported from India to Great Britain; that the balance is still further depressed by the unequal operation of revenue laws which were framed for the exclusive protection of home manufactures, and through which the exportations of Indian productions have annually decreased, till now they are unable to meet the liabilities under which the country is placed through the exhaustion of its colonial establishment; that, also, the English government, in order to place in the hands of the debtor colonies sufficient assets to enable them to pay the demands against them, has encouraged to an immense extent the production of opium, under the hopes

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that it may elsewhere find a successful market; and that, finally, as a last resort, it has sent out a fleet against China, in order to open her ports to a drug which it would demoralize her inhabitants to receive, but whose free importation is necessary to preserve the equilibrium of the colonial trade of Great Britain. India has only one method by which she can pay the demands of the mother country against her. The looms of the Deccan have ceased; the muslins which at one time princes would have spent treasures to purchase, are outbid by English manufactures; and opium is the sole production which India can export, without interfering with the commercial interests of the East India Company., But in what way can opium be made useful to the English merchant? It would meet but little patronage in his own country, and on what other can he successfully palm it? We believe that it was as far back as the close of the last century, that it was suggested by a member of the East India board of control, in his examination before parliament, that through the medium of opium, which the Chinese were even then observed to consume with avidity, the exchanges against China could be reduced, and an article of exportation procured, which might easily balance the great importation of tea which must necessarily exist. We have seen how successfully the hint has been acted on. There is a whole province in the north of British India which is purple with poppy fields, and in 1836 alone, (the returns of which year are the latest which we have at hand,) the number of chests which entered Canton was 27,111, whose value is estimated to be equal, at least, to $17,904,248. The Chinese government protested and legislated; Commissioner Lin was forced over the heads of degraded mandarins, to enforce the revenue laws at the scene of action; but Commissioner Lin has found his vigilance entirely unsuccessful, and a British fleet are now seconding the demand of British merchants, that the drug by whose means they are to maintain the balance of their trade, should be allowed to poison the air which is breathed by his Celestial majesty's subjects.

It is our object at present to examine the character of the British government in India, to review the means by which it obtained the ascendancy over the country which it sways, and to consider the probable operation of the relations to which we have just alluded. To those who have considered the history of our own colonial dependence, the features of the East Indian vice royalty must, after a little acquaintance, lose the foreign coloring that at first hangs over them. Great Britain founded her empire in India, it is true, by direct inoculation, while here the seed was cast upon the naked ground; but in both cases a system of culture was adopted which could rear the plant till its fruit was ready for the harvest. But in India, the complicated machinery of a commercial establishment, has been involved with the civil government. The court of directors, who may be said to represent the commercial interests of the company, consists of twenty-four members, who are chosen as the direct representatives of the proprietors themselves, and bear to them the same relation as exists between the directors of a bank and its stockholders. They have the right of proposing to the board of control, which is the representative in fact of the civil government, all such measures as they may think necessary for the welfare of their Asiatic subjects, and which, without their consent thus previously announced, would want the solemnity of laws. They are invested also with the exclusive supervision of the trade between the countries. Such is at least the theory of the powers which

are given by charter to the Proprietors and Directors of the East India Company, but as from the distance between the sphere of operation, and the point where their consultations are held, great obstructions must neces sarily lie in the way of that prompt and secret action which the govern ment of so vast and unsettled a country as India must require, they have gradually yielded one after one of their prerogatives into the hand of the governor-general, who is thus invested with vice-regal authority over the empire in which his dominion is seated. A company of merchants in Leadenhall street found themselves, very naturally, inadequate for the municipal regulation of a country half a hemisphere distant, and they have consequently surrendered to their agents their proconsular power, which gives them, in fact, privileges more extensive than those which are possessed by the king of Great Britain, on his native shores. The control over peace and war, the regulation of commerce, the prerogative of pardon, the supervision of justice, the patronage of government in a country where blue-book is a library in itself, the privilege of drawing bills of exchange on the company at home, which bear on their face negotiability, are powers which, centred as they are in the hands of a single individual, contribute to endow him, during the time of his administration, with authority which is, for all material purposes, supreme. It would seem as if the board of directors, after a few attempts at police legislation across the ocean, on a system so extensive that it would require magnetic powers to perfect it, had grown sick of their office, and by a single shuffle of their cards had tossed their whole authority into the hands of a dignitary who had before been only the most conspicuous among their servants. It is true that they have hung around him a few gilded manacles, which he may rattle on his arms as he stalks about in the plenitude of his sway, but such baubles have been always pleasing to the most despotic monarchs, for nothing can be more grateful to the man who feels that if his plans succeed, their whole credit will remain with him, than to know that in the case of their failure, their ignominy can be shifted in other hands. The governor-general is assisted by a council of state, consisting of five members, who have the right of expressing their opinions on all subjects that are presented for executive action, of recording their sentiments on their merits, and in case of their determined opposition to any measure which may be laid before them, of postponing its operation for forty-eight hours. If after that period the governor-general persists in his plan, he is able to carry it into execution. It is not difficult to see that under such a charter it would be impossible for the council to lay a serious restraint on the hands of the executive; nor indeed, as we shall afterwards see, do the peculiar exigencies of the empire require so much that its government should be one of caution and of reserve, as that its measures should be promptly and vigorously enforced. The civil authority of the company has under such arrangements been almost entirely transferred into the hands of the colo nial administration. In the course of a few years longer, their ancient privileges and their splendid emoluments will have vanished; and their banking-house, which was once the scene where the fate of Asia was decided, will be gradually deserted, till a few superannuated clerks will be all that will remain to tell the story of its former grandeur.

It was through an accident which has afterwards afforded a theme of much romance, that the company's authority in India was established. A physician named Boughton, having accompanied a British envoy from the

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