Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/266

 250 COMMERCE WITH and that we owe this to the sacrifices we have made to erroneous principles. The first effectual measure taken to suppress free trade was in 1686, in the most arbitrary mo- ment of the reign of James the Second, when, for the first time, a ship of war was dispatched to India, bearing a royal proclamation, directing the free traders to place themselves under the control of the company, and abandon their pursuits. After the access of a Dutch prince to our throne, many sacrifices were made to the supposed interests of the Dutch. During the reign of William, how- ever, so little were the people of England of opi- nion that the trade of India belonged of exclusive right to any body of men, that numerous free traders were still permitted to go out by licence, and even a second East India Company was formed. From the union of this new company with the old one in 1702, under Queen Anne, is to be dated the ruin of free trade, — the triumph of monoply principles, and, of course, the cessation, as far as Great Britain was concerned, of all useful intercourse with India, — a blank of 112 years. From the statements now given, we are left to the alternative of admitting, that the India trade, like every other trade, can only be conducted by separate and individual enterprise. This princi- ple is indeed more peculiarly appHcable to the Indian trade than to any other, if it were not