Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/247

 I I I I I I I afterTvards at 50 per cent, on the cost price, instead of the 400 or 500 per cent, formerly extortecL^ Merchants were under a general disability to traffic in the East without permission from the East India Company, and the com- pany's charter was occasionally availed of in controlling unlawful importations. Merchants in England, however, presented a memorial'^ to the Secretary of State com- plaining that, as their goods were excluded from ** the chartered seas of the East India Company/' American traders had traded with New South Wales to the detriment of the British. Thus *' Americans will monopolize the advantage of the trade/' *'and this country will have alt the expense of supportinj^*' the colony. So resolute was the sailor-governor in enforcing the new regulations about prices that Lord Hohart^ interposed his authority on behalf of free commerce. The English Govern* ment had consented to the proposition to establish a store in order to *' reduce to a proper level the exorbitant profits made by speculators, in t*onsefxuence of the scarcity, which, without such interference, they were able to continue to their own advantage and to the distress and, in many instances, the absolute ruin of the inhaldiants/' He would support the Governor by a continued supply of articles to be disposed of with such an object in view, but, except ** under very peculiar circumstances,'' the authority of ** the government must by no means be interposed, excepting in the prohibition against spirits," in control of private enterprise. What the private instructions to King originally were may l)e gathered from a despatch from himself to Lord Hobart (9th Nov, 180*2):— '* I l>elieve it is no secret either m the departnieiit your Lordship has aiicceedeil to, or to His Koyal Highiiesa the Comiiiaudej- in-chief, that several officera, civil mid military, had made forfciiiiea by the iufamons traffic in spirits which was so long carried on in defiauce of every honoar- able consideration that ought to attach to those who hold their Sovereign's commiBfiion. Repeated informftiiou of these enormities^ and the heavy ^ Despatch— King to Secretary of State, 31 at l>€c- 180L - Messrs. C. !^. and (JeorgG Eiiderby and Alexander and Benjaniia Champion, Liverpool. (leneral W. H, (iordoii ithe father of (General] Gordon who was sacrificed at Kliartoum in 18H5 by the (rladatone govern- ment) marrieil Elizabeth Knderby of the family mentioned in thia note,
 * Despatch— Lord Hobart to King, *^4th Ftib. l&liS.