^76 PROCEEDINGS IN ENGLAND. 
have understood that the Chairman of the India Company, on being 
applied to, to know whether they intended to put any part of my 
plan into execution, declared they did not, believing it to be chi- 
merical, and founded on no real knowledge of trade. Such being 
their opinion and intentions, they could not reasonably object to 
granting a license to Mr. Jacob, to trade direct to Abyssinia, who 
accordingly obtained one, though fettered with many restrictions. 
He laid in a cargo according to my recommendation ; and I feel 
confident, that the result of his voyage will be a conviction in every 
impartial mind, that my statements have been correct, and that the 
India Company have for many years neglected the most profitable 
trade within their charter. 
The letter which Mr. Salt brought down for the King of Great 
Britain from the Emperor of Abyssinia, had been delivered by me 
to Lord Spencer, when Secretary of State for the Home Department, 
and by him laid before his Majesty, together with the present of 
fine Habesh cloth. On its being definitively settled that Mr. Jacob s 
ship should go the Red Sea, I stated all these circumstances to Mr. 
Canning, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and represented 
the advantages which, I thought, would result from conciliating the 
King of Abyssinia, and thereby excluding the French from obtain- 
ing any influence in that part of Africa. I also took the liberty of 
suggesting, that as his Majesty had been pleased to receive the 
letter, and accept the presents of the Emperor, it was but decorous, 
that some notice should be taken of them, when an English vessel 
was going direct to his ports. 
Insignificant as the Abyssinian monarch might appear, the 
haughty sovereigns of Spain had corresponded with them at dif- 
