Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/276

 260 COMMERCE WITH of but 14, which is by no means equal in number or tonnage to the present free trade of the Ameri- cans with the very colonies of the Dutch them- selves. The English trade hardly exhibits more flatter- ing results. In the first twenty-one years, the successful period of the trade, the average number of ships which it employed yearly was little more than four. Of these, 12j per cent, were captured by the Dutch, and such was the unskilfulness of the navigators, that lOi per cent, were lost. From the year 1680 we possess actual statements of the t»nnage employed by our East India Company. In the first period of twenty years, or from the year 1680 to ths close of the century, when the Company had been one hundred years engaged in the trade, the whole yearly tonnage employed was, on an average, but 4590 tons. In the next twen- ty years it had fallen ofiP, and was 4232 only ; in the third period it was 6796 ; in the fourth it was 8861 ; in the fifth period it was 13,350 ; and in the period which closed the last century it was 26,300. We should fall into an egregious error if we were to ascribe the increase of shipping thus exhibited to any legitimate and beneficial increase in the commerce of the Company. It arose alto- gether from circumstances forced or fortuitous. The chief cause has been the accidental and un- looked-for circumstance of tea having become, in