Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/19

Rh evidence offered by these figures that the nation which carries the largest amount of the commerce of the world must always be the chief sufferer from privateers?

If, indeed, further evidence to the same effect be required it will be found in the pages which follow the note I have quoted. The losses suffered by English traders in the Indian seas during the first sixteen years of the war were computed by millions. That these losses were caused by French privateers is not only shown in the text but is borne out by the fact that when, by the capture of the nest whence the corsairs sallied out to burn and to destroy, privateering was suppressed, the English merchantship was able to pursue her way in safety. The damage effected on the commerce of England by the light squadrons and single ships of her enemy was small. The privateers did all the mischief, and, as I have said, that mischief ceased when those daring cruisers were deprived of a base of operations.

If the advice urged by Marquess Wellesley in 1800-1 had been followed the depredations upon British commerce in the Indian seas would have ceased at a much earlier period. It was the rejection of