C O C H I N C H I N A. , 343 
the legitimate sovereign, will in all probability be the case, 
we might still derive important advantages from a mere com- 
mercial intercourse. The timber alone which this country is 
capable of supplying, suitable for the purposes of building 
ships, is an object highly deserving the consideration of go- 
vernment. The docks of Bombay and those intended to be 
established on Prince of Wales's Island must rest their de- 
pendence on a supply of teak and other timber on very pre- 
carious grounds. If in the former it be intended to encourage 
the building of ships of the hue, it may be doubted v, hether, in 
a few years hence, the whole of the Malabar coast will afford 
a sufficient supply to keep a single ship on the stocks of 
seventy-four guns. Even now the greater part of M'hat is 
valuable is exhausted, and such as would be fit for building- 
large ships of war is not procurable without very considerable 
difficulties and delay. Equally precarious is the supply of 
teak timber, v/hich is floated down the river Ayerwaddy fiom 
the dominions of Ava or, as it has latcl}^ been called, the 
Birman empire. Yet this is the grand source from whence 
the supplies are meant to be drawn for the docks of Prince 
of Wales's Island. W^e have little, however, to trust to or to 
hope from the favourable disposition of the government of 
Rangoon. The French hyvc obtained here, as well as in 
every other part of Eastern India, a decided superiority of 
influence beyond all other Europeans ; and they will not fail 
to exert it to the utmost, in order to render nugatory our 
grand scheme of increasing our navy by establishing docks 
for building at Prince of Wales's Island, wiiich they would 
most eftectually accomplish by shutting up the Ayerwaddy 
