its
trade was almost annihilated. 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.
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