Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/302

 286 COMMERCE WITH As a nursery of seamen for a military navy, the East India trade will be found to stand high. jFrom the great lengtli of the voyage, and the con- sequent certainty of employment, seamen's wages are necessarily lower in it than in any other ; and there is an opportunity, therefore, of making a bet- ter selection. The same length of voyage necessa- rily creates a degree of skill in the common seamen, and of knowledge and intelligence in the officers and commanders, which are not to be expected in the more narrow experience of shorter adventures. This has certainly not hitherto been the result of the trade of our monopoly companies, to the degree it ought. To say that they employ two hands where one would have done the business, will cer- tainly not be admitted by any one acquainted with the obvious principles of economical science, to be a means of farthering the national prosperity and the public resources. What would be pronounced of the judgment or public spirit of a manufacturer, who, in these days, should argue the superiority of his machinery over that of his neighbours, because it required a hundred men to work it in- stead of fifty ? He would soon be brought to his sober senses by the competition of his countrymen, unless he could prevail upon the legislature to re- ward his patriotisQi by a patent, which would en- able him to make a profitable trade of it, by charg- ing a double price for his commodities. The argu-