Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/264

 q4S commerce with receive them, and the wisdom to restrain them, is the only one with which they have been able to maintain any thing like a successful traffic. This, indeed, is one, but not the sole or principal cause of the success of the Chinese trade in the hands even of monopoly companies. The great cause is the unlooked for universality of taste in the Eu- ropean world for tea, — for a gentle and delightful narcotic which no country but China can afford, aiid which, from these qualities, has gained ground, and still continues to gain ground, in spite of all the arts by which its price is enhanced to the con>- sumer. There is no other production of the East that possesses the same commercial qualities. It continues to gain ground, notwithstanding its ex- orbitant cost, and such is the passion for it, that the consumer gladly pays a tax for the use of it, to support that monopoly which is against him- self. The peqietual fear which the monopoly companies are in of losing so valuable an immuni- ty, is the cause of a nicety of conduct on their part in their intercourse with the Chinese, which we shall in vain look for in their commercial relations with the other nations of Asia. During the first century of the monopoly of the English, their privileges were frequently invaded, and this circumstance, as appears by comparing the results, was highly advantageous to the Indian com- merce. In that disturbed period of English history.