A. D. 1789. 183 



1^89 — Hitherto the tea, purchafed for our Eufl-India company at 

 Canton in China, was chiefly paid for in filver, carried from this coun- 

 try or from Bengal ; while the Dutch made a very profitable trade of 

 carrying tin to the fame port from their fettlement of Palambang on 

 the eaft (ide of Sumatra *. The diredors of our Eaft-India company 

 now refolved to participate with the Dutch in the fale ot an article, 

 which was the chief flaple of the very fiifl commerce of the Britifh 

 iflands : and in about a year from the commencement of this new trade 

 2,000 tuns of tin, valued at ;^i 20,000, were ihipped by them for China f. 



The illwill engendered by the American war was now turned into 

 friendihip and harmony between Great Britain and the American flates, 

 the influence of which extended to the moil: diftant Britifli pofl^fllons. 

 Earl Cornwallis, governor-general of India, about the beginning of this 

 year, or the end of the lafl:, gave orders, that American velfels fliould 

 be treated at the company's fettlements in all refpecSs as the mofl; fa- 

 voured foreigners. The fliip Chefl^apeak, the firfl; American that was 

 allowed to trade, or to (how her colours, in the-River Ganges, was more- 

 over favoured by the fupreme council of Bengal with an exemption from 

 the government cufloms, which all foreign veflTels are bound to pay. 



The art of multiplying and perpetuating the productions of the pen- 

 cil by prints from engraved copper-plates, ' the mofl: fecure depofitory 

 * for after ages,' as Sir Robert Strange very juftly obferves, ' of what- 

 ' ever is truely great, elegant, or beautiful,' was long confined to the 

 continent, and flouriflied chiefly in France and the Netherlands. Mr, 

 Anderfon, after quoting Guicciardini's account of the flourifliing ftate 

 of the arts and manufactures in the Netherlands about the year 1410, 

 adds, that France fl:ill poflefles a pre-eminence in the art of engraving. 

 And indeed, when Anderfon wrote, the bufinefs of the principal dealers 

 in prints in this country was to procure prints from the continent, not 

 only for the coUedions of men of tafte, but even for ornamental furni- 

 ture, our native productions for the later being chiefly mezotintos, 

 which, with a few exceptions, were of a very inferior degree of merit. 

 But in the few years, which have elapfed fince Anderfon finiflied his 

 work, a change has been produced in the ftate of the art of engraving, 

 which renders it an objedl of commercial hiftory. 



The firft fuccefsful efforts to raife Britifli engravings to well-merited 

 fame were made by Sir Robert Strange, whofe works, chiefly copied 



* The Dutch at Palambang receive the tin -)■ This was apparently the revival of an old 



from BanCa, a confiderable ifland adjacent to that branch of trade. In a pnblication of the year 



fettlement. According to Raynal they get an- 1677, quoted by Mr. Anderfon, we find that tin • 



nually 1,500,000 lb. of it from that ifland. [_Hi/l. then formed a part of the company's exports. 



fhil. et pol. V. i, p. 273, ed. 1782.] It is probable The reader may recolleft, that in antient times the 



that the competition of our company has Itflencd Egyptian-Greek fubjefts of Rome carried tin (mofl; 



the demand. probably Britifli) from Egypt to Arabia and India. 



