INDIGO. 



5! 



10. The view presented by these several parti- Letter to 



, . Bengal, 



cuiars strongly illustrates the observations we have 2s Aug. isoo. 

 laid down in the preceding paragraphs. The im- 

 ports of 1796 contrasted with the exports, shew 

 how greatly this market was overstocked by the 

 eagerness of competition. The accounts of the 

 following year, 1797, plainly discover, also, the 

 ruinous effects of that competition, combined with 

 other circumstances, in the diminution of the im- 

 ports from India to less than half the quantity of 

 the preceding year ; whilst the trifling quantities 

 received from America and other parts of Europe 

 in 1796, were also further reduced in the next 

 year, by the continued operation of another cause, 

 namely, the progressive ascendency of the Indian 

 indigo in the course of several preceding seasons. 



17. At the same time, the exports in 1796 

 exceeded those in 1795, and the exports of 1797 

 rose above those of 1796 in an unexampled pro- 

 portion ; whence it is clearly to be inferred, that 

 the Indian inditro has, notwithstandinor the diffi- 

 culties it had to struggle with, obtained a very 

 general preference throughout Europe, because 

 nearly the whole of the exports of 1797 were of 

 that description of indigo. 



18. In fact, we have, at the present time, rea- 

 son to consider London as the emporium of Eu- 

 rope for this commodity ; and it is of the utmost 

 consequence to our own manufacturers, as well as 

 the trade of the nation, that it should continue so. 



e2 The 



