304 TRAVELS IN 
at a cheaper market than that of London, they might alse 
be induced to make up their cargo with other articles at the 
same place, to the prejudice of the London trader. 
These objections may, perhaps, lose much of their weight 
by the following considerations. The East India Company's 
trade, according to the Directors' own account, is full}' com- 
petent to the whole supply of the East India and China 
markets, in commodities of European growth and manufac- 
ture : and they are satisfied in supplying the demands of 
those markets merely without a loss, in order to monopolize 
the trade and cut out foreign nations, who are thus obliged 
to purchase cargoes chiefly in exchange for specie. Even 
the privilege of 3000 tons allowed to the private merchant, 
by the terms of the Company's late charter, is said never ta 
be filled up ; to such a low rate have they reduced the prices 
of European articles in India and China, that the private 
trader finds no advantage in sending goods on his own ac- 
count, on a moderate freight, to the eastward of the Cape 
of Good Hope. The Americans are the only nation who, 
by their fisheries, are enabled to work themselves into a 
cargo to exchange for India and China goods ; with which they 
supply their own colonies and the West India islands, to the 
prejudice of the sales of the British East India Company. 
It will result, from these considerations, that the East India 
Company, upon the same plan, could supply their emporium 
at the Cape with the produce and manufactures of Great 
Britain to any amount, and at so cheap a rate as to undersell 
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