The advantageous footing on which the trade is placed, is so evident, that those who had no reliance on the objections urged against it, but who, nevertheless, have been unwilling to allow the treaty any merit on the score of this article, have endeavored to show that our India trade is of little importance, and of small value.

Whatever article can be supplied by the India Company, may likewise be supplied by us, and some of them on better terms by us, than by them. The reports of the committee of the directors of the East India company, published in 1793, when their charter was renewed, afford useful information on this subject, and disclose facts which show the advantages that we shall possess in this trade over the company. They admit, that in the articles of iron, wines, canvas, cordage, arms, and naval and military stores, foreigners can enter into a beneficial competition with them; and that canvas and cordage, and we may add, all naval stores and several other articles, can always be furnished in India by foreigners, cheaper than by the company.

If we appreciate the advantage we have over them, in such articles of supply as are of our own growth or production, as well as in the wines not unusually procured by touching at Madeira on the outward voyage to India, and compare it with the advantage that they have over us in the few articles of choice, which they purchase at the first hands, and which we must import in order to re-export to India, it is probable that our cargoes to India will, on the whole, be laid in as advantageously, if not more so, than those of the India company. If we consider the vast extent of territory, the numerous population, and the established manufactures of India, so far from supposing that a free trade to that country will be of little value to a young and enterprising nation, whose manufactures are still in their infancy, we ought rather to conclude that it is a country with which we should be solicitous to establish a free trade and intercourse.

Every one who has bestowed the slightest attention upon the foreign manufactures consumed in our country, must have observed the general and increasing use of those of India, owing to the better terms on which they can be procured from Asia than

from Europe. Though no document is at hand that will show the value of the annual importations from India, it is stated by Mr. Coxe, in his View of the United States, that the amount in value of our importations from Asia is more than one fifth of the value of our whole annual consumption of foreign commodities. It is true that the porcelain, silks, nankeens, and teas of China, form a large portion of this annual importation. But, after a full deduction on this account, a great and profitable branch of our commerce will be found in our trade to the East Indies. It should be remembered, [also,] that it is not the consumption of our own country that regulates the quantity of India goods. that we import; other countries have been supplied through us with the fabrics and productions of both India and China. treaty will enlarge this demand.*

The

Several circumstances calculated to give our trade with Asia, an advantage against foreign competition, and a preference to our trade with Europe, are deserving of attention.

First. The direct trade between us and Asia, including the East Indies as well as China, cannot be prosecuted by the British East India company, their ships being obliged to return to the port of London, and there to discharge.

Second. The difference between the duties on Asiatic goods imported in American bottoms direct from Asia, and the duties imposed on the same goods in foreign bottoms from Asia or from Europe; being on all articles a favorable discrimination, and in the articles of teas, the duties on those imported in foreign bottoms being 50 per cent. higher than on those imported in American bottoms.

The particular difference of duties on Asiatic goods imported in American and in foreign bottoms, so favorable to our own navigation, will not be affected by the right reserved by Great Britain to impose countervailing duties in certain cases; that right being relative to the intercourse between the United States and the British territories in Europe.

Perhaps from the certainty of the rights which it confers, it may invite a foreign capital to extensive enterprises, in which the United States will be an entrepot between India and a great part of Europe.

Third. The European intercourse with Asia is, in most cases, conducted by corporation or exclusive companies, and all experience has proved that in every species of business (that of banking and a few analogous employments excepted), in conducting of which a competition shall exist between individuals and corporations, the superior economy, enterprise, zeal, and perseverance of the former, will make them an overmatch for the latter; and that while individuals acquire riches, corporations, engaged in the same business, often sink their capital and become bankrupt. The British East India company are moreover burdened with various terms and conditions, which they are required to observe in their Asiatic trade, and which operate as so many advantages in favor of their rivals in the supply of foreign markets. The company, for example, are obliged annually to invest a large capital in the purchase of British manufactures to be exported and sold by them in India; the loss on these investments is considerable every year, as few of the manufactures which they are obliged to purchase, will sell in India for their cost and charges; besides, from the policy of protecting the home manufactures, the company are, in a great measure, shut out from supplying India goods for the home consumption of Great Britain. Most of the goods which they import from India, are re-exported with additional charges, incurred by the regulations of the company, to foreign markets, in supplying of which we shall be their rivals, as from the information of intelligent merchants, it is a fact that Asiatic goods, including the teas of China, are, [on an average,] cheaper within the United States than in Great Britain.

Fourth. The manufactures of Asia are not only cheaper here than in Europe, but in general they are cheaper than goods of equal quality of European manufacture. So long as from the cheapness of subsistence and the immense population of India (the inhabitants of the British territories only being estimated at forty millions) the labor of a manufacturer can be procured from two to three pence sterling per day, the similar manufactures of Europe, aided with all their ingenious machinery, is likely, on a fair competition, in almost every instance, to be excluded by

those of India. So apprehensive have the British government been of endangering their home manufactures by the permission of Asiatic goods to be consumed in Great Britain, that they have imposed eighteen per cent. duties on the gross sales of all India muslins, which is equal to twenty-two per cent. on their prime cost. The duties on coarser India goods are still higher, and a long catalogue of Asiatic articles, including all stained and printed goods, is prohibited from being consumed in Great Britain.

The British manufacturers were not satisfied even with this prohibitory system; and on the late renewal of the company's charter, they urged the total exclusion from British consumption of all India goods, and moreover proposed that the company should be held to import annually from India a large amount of raw materials, and particularly cotton, for the supply of the British manufacturers.

Those facts are noticed to show the advantages to be derived from a free access to the India market, from whence we may obtain those goods which would be extensively consumed even in the first manufacturing nations of Europe, did not the security of their manufactories require their exclusion.*

NO. XXVII.

CAMILLUS.

1795.

The third article contains the terms and conditions of the trade and intercourse that it authorizes between us and the British colonies on the American continent. The twelfth article was intended to adjust the trade between us and the British

[* Great Britain has made it a serious point, in which she has in more than one instance succeeded, to engage foreign powers (the emperor was one) to renounce establishments for carrying on the trade with India, from their own territories: yet this treaty opens all the territories to us. And yet it is not only denied merit, but criminated, in this very particular.]

islands in the West Indies. The thirteenth article secures to us a direct trade with the British territories in the East Indies; and it is the office of the fourteenth and the fifteenth articles, to ascertain and establish the terms of the intercourse and trade between the territories of the United States and the British dominions in Europe.

The fourteenth article establishes a perfect and reciprocal liberty of commerce and navigation between the territories of the United States and of the British dominions in Europe; stipulates that the people and inhabitants of the two countries respectively, namely, of the United States, and of the British dominions in Europe, shall have liberty to come with their ships and cargoes to the ports, cities, and places of each other, within the territories and dominions aforesaid, to resort and reside there, without limitation of time, to hire houses and stores for the purpose of commerce; and that the merchants and traders on each side shall enjoy, for their commerce, the fullest protection and security, subject, notwithstanding, in respect to the stipulations of this article, to the laws of the two nations respectively.

As this article, in the customary language employed in the introductory articles of commercial treaties, speaks of a perfect liberty of commerce and navigation, without excepting any commodity, or specifying any impost or duty, it was possible that a latitude or freedom of trade, inconsistent with the revenue laws, and policy of the two nations, might have been claimed under it; hence the propriety of the provision with which the article concludes, and which reserves to the parties respectively, the power of avoiding this inconvenience, by continuing and enacting such laws as may be proper for the purpose.

But as under this power again, partial duties, and even partial exclusions, might have been established, whereby ships and merchandises, as well as the articles of the growth, produce, or manufacture of one of the parties, might have been made liable to higher duties and imposts in the territories of the other, than the ships and similar merchandises, and articles of the growth, produce, or manufacture of other nations; or whereby one of the parties might prohibit the importation or exportation, by the