One Beneficial Consequence, However, Resulted
From The Hostility Of The Dutch; The English, Driven From Their Old
Factories, Established New Ones At Madras And In Bengal.
Before, however, this decline of the English trade to India, we have some
curious and interesting documents relating to it particularly, and to the
effects produced on the cost of East Indian commodities in Europe
generally, by the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope.
These are supplied by
Mr. Munn, in a treatise he published in 1621; in favour of the East India
trade. We have already given the substance of his remarks so far as they
relate to the lowering the price of Indian commodities, but as his work is
more particularly applicable to, and illustrative of the state of English
commerce with India, at this time, we shall here enter into some of his
details.
According to them, there were six million pounds of pepper annually
consumed in Europe, which used to cost, when purchased at Aleppo, brought
over land thither from India, at the rate of two shillings per lb.; whereas
it now cost, purchased in India, only two-pence halfpenny per lb.: the
consumption of cloves was 450,000 lbs.; cost at Aleppo four shillings and
nine-pence per lb., in India nine-pence: the consumption of mace was
150,000 lbs.; cost at Aleppo the same per lb. as the cloves; in India it
was bought at eight-pence per lb.: the consumption of nutmegs was 400,000
lbs.; the price at Aleppo, two shillings and four-pence per lb.; in India
only four-pence; the consumption of indigo was 350,000 lbs.; the price at
Aleppo four shillings and four-pence per lb.; in India one and two-pence,
and the consumption of raw silk was one million lbs., the price of which at
Aleppo was twelve shillings per lb., and in India eight shillings. It will
be remarked that this last article was purchased in India, at a rate not
nearly so much below its Aleppo price as any of the other articles; pepper,
on the other hand, was more reduced in price than any of the other
articles. The total cost of all the articles, when purchased at Aleppo, was
1,465,000 _l._; when purchased in India, 511,458 _l._; the price in the
latter market, therefore, was little more than one-third of their Aleppo
price. As, however, the voyage from India is longer than that from Aleppo,
it added, according to Mr. Munn's calculation, one-sixth to the cost of the
articles beyond that of the Turkey voyage. Even after making this addition,
Mr. Munn comes to the conclusion we have formerly stated, "that the said
wares by the Cape of Good Hope cost us but about half the price which they
will cost from Turkey."
Mr. Munn also gives the annual importation of the principal Indian goods
into England, by the East India Company, and the price each article sold
for in England; according to this table, the quantity of pepper was
250,000 lbs., which, bought in India for twopence halfpenny, sold in
England for one shilling and eightpence:
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