Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/194

 178 COMMERCE WITH American vessel will easily perform three voyages for one voyage of a Chinese junk ; that is, she will make three voyages between Batavia and China within the twelvemonth, and this too with much more security to herself and cargo. She will do it with one-tenth part of the crew, and of some particular goods, she will, in the same ton- nage, stow an incomparably larger quantity. * There is, in fact, the same wide difference between the cost of the work done by them, that there is be- tween that effected by manual labour, and by the most skilful and perfect piece of machinery. Not- withstanding all this, the trade carried on by the junks has some advantages over that conducted by Europeans. The Chinese have an intimate know- ledge of the markets, and a skill in assorting and lay- ing in their cargoes, which no European, in the ex- isting state of things, can acquire ; and they display a rigid economy, and give an attention to details which, in these climates, are foreign to the habits of an European. They have, over and above, peculiar advantages in the ports of their own country, some of them such as afford the most favourable mate- rials of a commerce with the Indian islands, the Eu- ropean merchant being altogether excluded from. The cargo of a Chinese junk is not the proper- ty of an individual, nor of two or three, as an ad-
 * In cotton, for example, as two to one.