Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/383

 ARTICLES OF EXPORTATION. 367 which the pepper trade would have been reduced, could any one nation have been able to make a mo- nopoly of it as the Dutch did of the clove and nutmeo; trade. That this has not been done as with these two productions, we are not indebted to the wisdom or forbearance of the European policy of the times, but to the impracticableness of effect- ing so great a mischief. Pepper has a wide geo- graphical distribution, and the inhabitants of the countries in which it grows are compared to the feeble inhabitants of the Spice Islands, so powerful and spirited as to have afforded effectual resistance to a system which was a virtual spoliation of their property. The third remark which I have to make is on the state of the trade when an active competition existed in it between the Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English. Mr Munn triumphantly proclaims the advantages which England derives from the new trade of the East India Company, of which he was a member, and says that the country obtained spices nearly one-third cheaper than by the old route. It is evident, from what has just been stated of the conduct of the Dutch, that this fall was not owing to the conduct natural to a com- mercial monopoly, but to the effects of the busy competition which subsisted at the time between the European nations, during which the trade was followed by many of the beneficial conse-