This fact is not to be denied, and is so much the worse, that though a government even of merchants may be supposed to obtain revenues fairly, individuals, who rapidly acquire great wealth are always supposed to do it by extortion or unfair means. {160}

The third cause for envy is of great antiquity.  The commerce of the East, from the earliest ages, has been that which has enriched all the nations that ever possessed it; and, consequently, has been a perpetual cause of envy and contention, as we have already seen, in its proper place.  For all those reasons, not one of which we can remove entirely, the East India trade is a particular object of envy; and, unless great care is taken, will entail the same danger on this country, as it has on all those that ever possessed it.  Tyre and Sidon, in Syria, Alexandria, in Egypt, Venice, Genoa, the Hans Towns, and Portugal, have all been raised and ruined by this trade, which seems to

—–­ {160} So far back as 1793, Mr. Dundas estimated the sums remitted by individuals at an annual million; add to this, plunder arising from war, (which is become as natural a state in India as peace,) and we shall see that now the revenues and establishments are nearly doubled.  The following will not be an unfair estimate: 

Private fortunes remitted in 1793 L. 1,000,000
Average ditto arising from years
of war, the plunder of
Seringapatam, &c 300,000
Increase remitted home since,
in proportion to revenue 700,000
          
                                   ____________

Remitted now by the same description
of men L. 2,000,000

Besides what is remitted home, those servants of the company expend immense sums in the country, living there in the greatest luxury. [end of page #198] -=-

have been the cradle and the grave of most of those nations that have become rich and powerful by the means of commerce.

Our West India wealth, though derived from a source still more, or at least equally, impure, and though not inferior in amount, is, for several reasons, not the cause of so much envy.  It is not confined to a company, and therefore the splendour and ostentation that, in the case of the Asiatic trade, occasion envy, do not exist in that to the American islands.

Our monopoly is by no means so complete, which has a double effect in our favour; for, besides preventing others from envying us so much, it prevents them from condemning us so severely.

The same nations that see, in its full force, the injustice of subjecting the inhabitants of the East, in their own country, in a way that, at the worst, is not very rigorous, join cordially in robbing Africa of its inhabitants, to make them slaves in America, in a way, that, at the best, is very rigorous.

Such are the baneful effects of sordid interest acting on the mind of man!  But our business is not here to investigate opinions, but their result; and, in the present instance, we find that to admit participation in criminality is the only way to avoid envy and offence.