ftantly received great countenance, extenfive powers, and effectual protection from the States General; fo the company, on the other hand, have paid the public very nobly for all these benefits, and upon particular emergencies have contributed largely for the fervice of the commonwealth. It appears, that the dominion they have established in the Eaft, may very juftly be ftiled an empire, perhaps after China and Japan, the most confiderable in that part of the world. They hold this in full property, exercifing fovereign authority over their fubjects, in ecclefiaftical, civil, and military affairs. The city of Batavia is a capital fuitable to fuch an empire; the Governor-General lives there with the state of a great Prince; and feveral of his Counfellors govern, as Vice-roys, very large dominions. The plan of government is uniform and correct, and thoroughly and univerfally obeyed. They have fleets, armies, and treafures equal to their occafions; are revered by all the Princes and States in their neighbourhood; and, indeed, give law to most of them. The advantages refulting from this beneficial commerce, to the fubjects of the United Provinces, is almoft beyond the reach of computation; for to fay nothing of the immenfe fums spent in building, manning, rigging, victualling, and freighting their fhips annually fent to the Indies, the dividends that have been paid to the proprietors of their ftock, amount to fums aftonishing, and almost incredible. The original capital of this great company was very little more than fix hundred thousand pounds fterling, and they have paid fince their establishment, fifteen hundred millions of our money in dividends. The republic of Holland, therefore, has no need to envy the Spaniards their Indies; and the wealth brought in by this company, may well confole her for the lofs of the gold mines in Brazil.

The third book regards the affairs of the English Eaft India company. It appears from hence, that the trade managed from this ifland with the rich countries of the Eaft, has been fubject to various interruptions, great inconveniences, and, till within these last threefcore years, almoft perpetual incertainties. When we first traded thither, our capitals were but fmall, the powers granted to our companies much reftrained, and the maritime force of the nation feldom employed in their protection. This gave the Dutch great advantages, and how much foever the two nations might be friends in Europe, we learn from facts, that they feldom appeared, and more feldom were, real friends to each other in the Indies. By this we fuffered exceedingly, more especially in the detestable affair of Amboyna, by which we loft our share in the spice trade, and were foon after wormed out of our correfpondence with Japan; which, whatever they may be now, were the original fources of the immenfe profits arifing

to

to our rivals; by which they were enabled to establish such a power as we could no longer cope with: and during the time of our melancholy civil wars, this power rooted itself so deep, and extended fo wide, that it was in vain for us to renew our pretenfions to our antient rights, which by our competitors availing themfelves of those finifter accidents, have been long ago effectually extinguished.

The present East India company are, however, a very respectable body; have many confiderable fettlements, in different parts of the Indies; and carry on a very flourishing trade there: the profits of which, as well as that between Europe and the Indies, center at last here, and cannot but be very beneficial to the nation. There have, however, been various fufpicions, as if this trade must be carried on to ftill greater advantage without an exclufive company. Our Author has given place to a paper made public in fupport of this notion, as well as to the arguments that have been offered against it. The present critical fituation of things renders it very improper to enter into a long difcuffion of points which are certainly of a very delicate nature, and withal very difficult to be understood, as the lights neceffary to form a right judgment, are not in private people's power.

The fourth and laft book confifts of three chapters. The firft refpects the Oftend company, and contains an abridgment of the difpute which the erecting of that company occafioned between the courts of Vienna and Madrid, on one fide, and thofe of Versailles, London, and the Hague, on the other. The grounds of the controverfy were, in few words, thefe; the Spanish Low Countries were difabled by treaties from carrying on any fuch commerce as this; they had been yielded by France to the House of Auftria, under the reftrictions fettled by these treaties, and they had been before conquered for the House of Auftria, by the maritime Powers, who, as well as France, had an intereft in fupporting these restrictions. In order to maintain this company, amongst other reasons, the late Emperor Charles VI. and his late Catholic Majefty, Philip V. concluded the treaty of Vienna, in oppofition to which the treaty of Hanover took place between France and the maritime Powers. At length, however, these quarrels were determined by a long and perplexed negotiation, and the new Oftend company absolutely fuppreffed.

The Danish Eaft India company is the subject of the next chapter, in which our Author again departs from chronological order; for, in point of time, the Danish company came next to the Dutch; but having, out of complaifance to the Abbe Guyon,

placed

of

placed the French company firft, it of course threw this part his work into diforder, and yet there does not want a reason for his placing the Danish company here: for he feems to have refpect to the new additional charter, granted by the late King, in confequence of a project formed by fome of the Oftend adventurers, and against which the maritime Powers, treating it as a new company, began a warm oppofition. His Danish Majefty, however, understood his own rights, and the confequen. ces of this commerce, too well, to give way even to an oppofition that had been hitherto fo fuccefsful against two of the greatest powers in Europe. He afferted, that from the earliest times the Danes had diftinguifhed themfelves by their naval force, and maritime expedition. He took notice, that this very company had already fubfifted more than a century; that his fubjects had been for the beft part of that time in poffeffion of the city, fortrefs, and port of Tranquebar, on the coaft of Coromandel; and that there was no colour for their difputing with him, whether he should grant new privileges and advantages to his own subjects, in order to encourage them to profecute this commerce with more alacrity. In confequence of these reasons the oppofition was gradually let fall, and the Danes have ever fince purfued their trade with greater fpirit, and, as themselves fay, (who ought to be the best judges) with better fuccefs. There is one circumstance that does great honour to this company, or rather to this crown; viz. that they have taken less pains to render the commerce of the Indies beneficial to themselves, than to the natives; to whom they have kindly vouchfafed their protection, upon very eafy terms; and have beftowed much trouble; accompanied with no fmall expence, in which the English have alfo joined, to convert the inhabitants, the Indian Pagans more efpecially, to the Chriftian religion: in which pious and charitable work, they have had the vifible affiftance of Providence, and pofterity will very probably attribute the progrefs of their trade to the Divine Bleffing upon their labours.

Our Author, in his laft chapter, treats of the Swedish company, which is alfo generally confidered as fpringing from the root of the Oftend company, though at the fame time it must be acknowleged, that Guftavus Adolphus erected an Eaft India company almost a century and an half ago; but it came to nothing, and therefore the company erected in the late reign, is looked upon as a new one. In this light it met alfo with fome oppofition, but his Swedish Majefty acted with fuch firmness, and the nation, which is not always the cafe, concurred fo roundly with the King and his Minifters, that it was quickly got over, or rather fell of itfelf. Though it may feem ftrange, that the maritime Powers fhould interpofe, in relation to these REV. July, 1757.

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two

two companies, which stood upon foundations perfectly different from that of the company which had been erected in the Low Countries, it will neverthelefs appear natural enough, when the Reader is told, that Jofhua Van Afperen, and Henry Koning, the principal proprietors of thefe companies, were alto embarked in that of Oftend; and that the Danes and Swedes more espe cially were affifted in carrying on thefe fchemes, by fome of the fubjects of the maritime Powers.

The Pruffian company, or, as it is generally ftiled, the company of Embden, is not mentioned by our Author; and, indeed, there is as yet but very little to be faid of it; but, perhaps, when the affairs of Europe fhall again fettle into profound peace, this company, which feems at prefent fufpended, may lift up its head once more. However that may be, there are fome other powers that have heretofore had fome fhare in this commerce, that ftill preferve fome remains of the fhare they had, and that poffibly may one day put in for a larger: which a writer who would examine this matter to the bottom, will not fail to mention, and of which we will conclude this article with giving a few hints.

In the first place, the Italian ftates, particularly Venice and Genoa, were once fole mafters of this trade, though it does not appear that either of them ever fent their ships to the Indies. The Venetians fucceeded the Greeks in the management of this commerce, through Egypt, while under the dominion of the Khaliffs and the Mamalukes; and it was the principal fource of the immenfe wealth, extenfive trade, and great naval power of that celebrated republic. The Genoefe fell upon a different route, and being poffeffed of the city and port of Caffa, in Crim Tartary, dealt largely in Eaft-India commodities, which, after coming a great way by land, were at length transported thither over the Pontus Euxinus. Both these methods of correfpondence are, in a great measure ccafed; but it does not, however, follow from thence, that they may never be revived, more especially if what a very intelligent and judicious Author has obferved be true, that fpices, and many other rich commodities, arrived by thefe routes, much fresher and in a higher degree of perfection, than they come to us at prefent; which we muft allow has fome probability on its fide.

The Spaniards have alfo very confiderable dominions in the Eaft Indies, though Abbe Guyon has fcarce afforded them a dozen lines; and their Acapulco fhip is of more value than the whole commerce of fome of the companies to which he has vouchfafed particular articles. It cannot, indeed, be denied, that the Spaniards have been for a long courfe of years very

neg

negligent, or rather difinclined to the trade of the Eaft Indies, having always confidered it in one point of view, as a clog upon their American dominions but we are not fure that they will always confider it in this light; and we know very well, that whenever they confider it in another, it may be turned highly to their advantage. At all events, when this fubject is treated with any exactness, the Spaniards, who are mafters of the Philippines, and may be masters when they please of the whole Archipelago of St. Lazarus, will not be left out of the number of those powers that are interested in the commerce of the Indies.

The last we shall mention is the Ruffians, who carry on a very confiderable trade by land with China, and may carry on a yet more confiderable one, whenever they are fo difpofed, with Japan, and the ifles dependant upon it, and other countries, perhaps, that are at prefent unknown to us. All these, and it may be fome other points, will fall under the cognizance of thofe who confider the oriental commerce in its full extent, which always was, and, perhaps, ever will be, the first wheel in that vaft machine of traffic which circulates the bleffings that Providence has bestowed on the different parts of this terraqueous globe.

The work that is now before us, may be confidered as a ufeful and agreeable introduction to this kind of fcience. It certainly contains a variety of materials, fome of them curious, many inftructive, and all of them pleafant. We may therefore hope that it will anfwer the end of its Author, and excite that laudable curiosity which will, of course, induce its Readers to enquire for what may fatisfy their thirst of knowlege, in works of greater extent. We may alfo wish to fee the French Writer's plan divided, and the feveral parts of it ex-. ecuted, in a more fcientific method. The geography of the Indies might employ even a laborious writer, for many years; and a perfect work of that kind would be very acceptable to the world. The civil and political hiftory of these countries, for which there are already vaft materials, (and much more might be easily obtained) would fill up a great chafm, that has been long regretted by the lovers of this fort of knowlege, who are very little edified with the fhort imperfect abridgments that have hitherto appeared. The religion of the Indies is another curious and copious fubject, upon which we have very little that is certain or intelligible. The natural hiftory of the Eaft, has never been digefted into a proper method, or examined with that skill and care which it deferves. It must be confeffed, that the history of commerce, and of companies, has been, of late years more especially, difcuffed with greater abilities and exactnefs than any of the other branches; but there are many things still wanting, to render even this complete.