Your Committee apprehend that the present
state, nature, and tendency of this trade are not generally understood.
[Sidenote: Trade to India formerly carried on chiefly in silver.]
Until the acquisition of great territorial revenues by the East India
Company, the trade with India was carried on upon the common principles
of commerce,--namely, by sending out such commodities as found a demand
in the India market, and, where that demand was not adequate to the
reciprocal call of the European market for Indian goods, by a large
annual exportation of treasure, chiefly in silver. In some years that
export has been as high as six hundred and eighty thousand pounds
sterling. The other European companies trading to India traded thither
on the same footing. Their export of bullion was probably larger in
proportion to the total of their commerce, as their commerce itself bore
a much larger proportion to the British than it does at this time or has
done for many years past. But stating it to be equal to the British,
the whole of the silver sent annually from Europe into Hindostan could
not fall very short of twelve or thirteen hundred thousand pounds a
year.
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