Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/382

 36G COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION OF to have been laid in in India at the rate of six Spa- nish dollars the picul, and freight to have ac- tually cost the Portuguese, in the early and im- perfect state of their navigation, as high as L. 50 Sterling per ton, or above si:v times the present prices, they ought still, had there been a free trade, to have sold at 7d. per pound. To the difference between land and sea carriage must be added, the superior risk of three sea voyages, — the expences of frequent shipment and trans-shipment, the many arbitrary imposts, in the form of import, transit, and export duties, levied by barbarous states, * with the risk of plunder and depredation in passing through the territories of barbarous hordes, t Another important remark occurs, that, during the short period in which the Dutch had a mono- poly of the pepper trade, the price rose 100 per cent, above what it was in the time even of the Portu- guese, and 114S per cent, beyond what it had been before the discovery of the route by the Cape of Good Hope. This shews at once the condition to • The duties levied by the Soldans of Egypt alone are said to have amounted to one-third of the price of the goods at Alexandria. "What goods," says the author of the Wealth of Na- tions, " could bear the expence of land carriage between London and Calcutta ? Or, if there were any so precious as to be able to support the expence, with what safety could they be transported through the territories of so naany bar- barous nations ?" — Book I- Chap- III-