to obtain revenues
fairly, individuals, who rapidly acquire great wealth are always
supposed to do it by extortion or unfair means. {160}

The third cause for envy is of great antiquity. The commerce of the
East, from the earliest ages, has been that which has enriched all the
nations that ever possessed it; and, consequently, has been a perpetual
cause of envy and contention, as we have already seen, in its proper
place. For all those reasons, not one of which we can remove entirely,
the East India trade is a particular object of envy; and, unless great
care is taken, will entail the same danger on this country, as it has on
all those that ever possessed it. Tyre and Sidon, in Syria, Alexandria,
in Egypt, Venice, Genoa, the Hans Towns, and Portugal, have all been
raised and ruined by this trade, which seems to

---
{160} So far back as 1793, Mr. Dundas estimated the sums remitted
by individuals at an annual million; add to this, plunder arising from
war, (which is become as natural a state in India as peace,) and we
shall see that now the revenues and establishments are nearly doubled.
The following will not be an unfair estimate:

Private fortunes remitted in 1793 L. 1,000,000
Average ditto arising from years
of war, the plunder of
Seringapatam, &c 300,000
Increase remitted home since,
in proportion to revenue 700,000
____________

Remitted now by the same description
of men L. 2,000,000

Besides what is remitted home, those servants of the company expend
immense sums in the country, living there in the greatest luxury. [end
of page #198]
-=-

have been the cradle and the grave of most of those nations that have
become rich and powerful by the means of commerce.

Our West India wealth, though derived from a source still more, or at
least equally, impure, and though not inferior in amount, is, for several
reasons, not the cause of so much envy. It is not confined to a
company, and therefore the splendour and ostentation that, in the case
of the Asiatic trade, occasion envy, do not exist in that to the
American islands.

Our monopoly is by no means so complete, which has a double effect
in our favour; for, besides preventing others from envying us so much,
it prevents them from condemning us so severely.

The same nations that see, in its full force, the