Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/479

 of the French war had also reached the Company, which suffered by the deficiency in the amount of their sales at home, partly in consequence of a reduced demand for Indian produce and manufactures, but chiefly on account of the convulsed state of Europe, and the interdiction of commercial intercourse with almost every country of the Continent to which previously their goods were exported.

Happily in 1814 the trade of the Company, for so many years jealously guarded as a strict monopoly, was thrown entirely open to private competition, in so far as respected the Indian continent, although the exclusive trade to China, deemed by far the most lucrative at the time, was still preserved, in spite of the efforts of Manchester, Glasgow, and Bristol to open it to the general competition of all classes. Several sensible men in the House of Commons urged upon the Company the policy of throwing open the whole trade to the enterprise of private shipowners and merchants, arguing that the affairs of the Company would be benefited, rather than prejudiced, by such an arrangement; but the interests of private individuals connected with the Company predominated both with the government and with Parliament.

The consideration of this Bill occupied the entire session of 1813, and in its conditions may be traced the slow effects of the efforts of the free-traders to procure the total overthrow of the Company's privileges in respect of shipping. Such was