3o6 TRAVELS IN 
these disadvantages, the trade to tlie coast of Brazil might 
have been extended to many times the amount. 
As in the case of the Cape becoming a commercial depot 
in the hands of the East India Company, the consurapiion, 
in Spanish and Portugueze America, of Eastern produce, 
would increase to a very great extent, for all which they 
would pay in specie ; and as the Company feel the greatest 
want of specie for their China trade, and still more for the 
necessary uses of their Indian empire, the supply of hard 
money they would thus obtain, would considerably lessen, if 
not entirely put an end to, the difficulties under which they 
now labor on that account. And the additional quantities 
of Indian produce and manufactures that would be required 
for this new channel of trade might prove, in some degree, 
an indemnity to the natives of India for what the Com- 
pany draw from them in the shape of revenue to be sent to 
Europe. 
The quantity of European and Indian produce consumed 
in South America is by no means trifling. I observed in 
Rio de Janeiro a whole street consisting of shops, and every 
shop filled with Indian muslins and Manchester goods, which, 
having come through Lisbon, were offered, of course, at 
enormously high prices. The trade, it is true,. that subsists be- 
tween England and Portugal, might render it prudent not 
materially to interfere with the Portugueze settlements ; but 
the case is very different with regard to those of Spain. The 
Mother Country, more intent upon drawing specie from the 
mine than in promoting the happiness of its subjects in this 
