Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/31

Book VI. The company, confining themselves entirely to the trade between India and Europe, had, not unwisely, relinquished to their agents that which is carried on from one part of India to another: but the impositions of the government had hitherto prevented their agents from reaping any considerable advantages from this indulgence: and to promote their profits, the company, soon after the embassy, allowed all those who served them under covenants, to make use of their dustucks for such commodities as belonged to themselves; but forbid, under severe penalties, the prostitution or extension of this privilege to any others. A question now arose, whether the company's agents were entitled to trade from one part of the province to another, in such commodities as were the produce of Bengal. The Mogul's patent implied no restrictions. But they could not be ignorant of the intentions of Delhi concerning this privilege; for when the embassadors proposed to Caundorah that it should extend to all kinds of commodities, he replied with emotion "The Sea!" And the Nabob Jaffier openly treated the pretension with the same indignation as he had secretly felt against the ceded lands, declaring that he would not suffer the dustucks to protect any goods, excepting such as were imported, or were purchased to be exported, by sea; alleging, that as the salt, beetle-nut, and tobacco, together with some other articles of general consumption, were either farmed out in monopolies, or taxed at excessive rates, the detriment to the revenues would be as great as the advantages to the company's agents, if they were permitted to trade in these articles, free of the customs and rents which were paid by the natives who dealt in them.

Convinced as much by the reasoning, as deterred by the power, of the Nabob, the agents receded from their pretension, and applied themselves to make the most advantage of those privileges which were not contested. Success produced new adventures; and the superior skill of our countrymen in navigation, induced the merchants of the province, Moors, Armenians and Indians, to freight most of the goods which they exported to foreign markets, on the shipping belonging to the colony, which, in ten years after the