318 TRADE WITH 



CHAP. XXVI. 



The account in the Appendix is made in current 

 rupees, which, though occasionally varying in 

 value, may be taken in the whole term as worth 

 two shillings sterling each. The excess of the 

 imports of gold and silver into India and China 

 by the Company and the Americans in the term 

 amounted to twenty-eight million nine hundred 

 and twenty-eight thousand seven hundred and 

 eleven pounds. In the year 1820-21 the treasure 

 carried by the Americans to China is not inserted, 

 and as their trade was as great in that as in the 

 years immediately before and after, we assume 

 that it amounted to one million one hundred and 

 seventy-one thousand two hundred and eighty- 

 nine pounds sterling, thus making the imports of 

 treasure thirty millions, or one million five hun- 

 dred thousand pounds annually during the twenty 

 years. 



An exciting effect must have been produced 

 on the continental states of Europe by the return 

 of peace after a long period, in which they had 

 been precluded from any direct intercourse with 

 India and China. They had been long indulging 

 in complaints at their exclusion from that in- 

 tercourse, their imaginations had formed high 

 expectations of its benefits, and they were eager 

 to commence operations to secure some of those 

 benefits. Neither their soil nor their industry 

 furnished equivalents for the productions of Asia, 



