On this circumstance little observation
is necessary.
During the time of their struggles for enlarging this losing trade,
which they considered as a national object,--what in one point of view
it was, and, if it had not been grossly mismanaged, might have been in
more than one,--in this part it is impossible to refuse to the Directors
a very great share of merit. No degree of thought, of trouble, or of
reasonable expense was spared by them for the improvement of the
commodity. They framed with diligence, and apparently on very good
information, a code of manufacturing regulations for that purpose; and
several persons were sent out, conversant in the Italian method of
preparing and winding silk, aided by proper machines for facilitating
and perfecting the work. This, under proper care, and in course of time,
might have produced a real improvement to Bengal; but in the first
instance it naturally drew the business from native management, and it
caused a revulsion from the trade and manufactures of India which led as
naturally and inevitably to an European monopoly, in some hands or
other, as any of the modes of coercion which were or could be employed.
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