A single instance must convince the most sceptical. The East India Company carry British manufactures out to India at about 40_s._ per ton--a distance of seven thousand miles--a rate cheaper than the carriage for five hundred miles in any other direction; therefore our manufacturers have a good chance of selling their goods, owing to their not being greatly enhanced by freight, and the servants of the Company are allowed to traffic, so that every article adapted for the India market can find its way there without difficulty, though the Company itself may not enter into such details. Those who wish to send goods to India are therefore highly indebted to the Company; and as to the imports I will ask the public only one simple question: Have East India commodities risen in price, notwithstanding the heavy duties and increased expences of ship-building, and every article relating thereto, so much as West India produce? It is not necessary to dwell on this point; it is an evident fact that the East India goods are far cheaper than they would be if brought over by individual merchants, and the supply is more regular. If sales are slow the Company keeps its goods at its own loss, with admirable good nature, or at least with admirable _sang froid_, and it never creates an artificial scarcity to enhance the price. The sales are by fair competition and without favour; what would the public wish or desire more? We come now to the next point. V. _That the merchants of Liverpool, Hull, &c. and the manufacturers, in their endeavour to share the trade with London, are asking what would be injurious to themselves._ Having already shewn the danger of any great change, let us consider the probability of advantage. When goods are shipped for such a remote market, it is essentially necessary, previously to ascertain, that they are wanted. Now when the exports are confined to one company, from its accurate knowledge of trade, it can proportion the quantities of the articles to the general demand for each; but if there are 500 merchants, entirely ignorant of what each other are doing; or what is worse, deceiving each other, in order to insure a better market for their own shipment, they will necessarily send too much of some articles and not enough of others; hence many will be ruined, for they cannot carry their cargoes from port to port as in Europe or America: if the market is over-stocked at the port they are bound to, there is no alternative, but sacrificing the cargo for what it will fetch, or leaving it on hand to await the chance of a future sale. On the return of the vessel, here the merchant awakes from his golden dream, and finds himself on the verge of bankruptcy, for the utmost limit of credit has expired--He is ruined!