subjects to
trade with my people; and if the latter, you must try your strength with
me. While there are tens of thousands of unemployed operatives in Great
Britain, her rulers should omit no opportunity of extending her
commerce; and their suffering the Japanese sullenly to exclude our
shipping, while the Dutch enjoy the sole privilege of trading to their
country, seems to me putting up with a state of things that ought not to
exist.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NECESSITY OF APPOINTING BRITISH CONSULS IN THE
SPANISH AND DUTCH COLONIES--NEW SETTLEMENT ON
THE WESTERN COAST OF BORNEO--IMPORTANT DISCOVERY
OF COAL ON THE NORTH-WEST COAST--CONCLUDING
REMARKS.

It appears to me, that British commerce in the East, requires somewhat
more care and attention from the Authorities in the mother country, than
they have hitherto bestowed upon it. The trade carried on by British
subjects with the Philippines, Siam, and the Dutch Colonies, is both
extensive and important; but, not unfrequently, it suffers interruption
from the Government of those countries, to the serious loss and
inconvenience of the parties concerned. That a Consul or other properly
authorised functionary is required to watch over the interests of
British merchants trading to Manilla, Bang-kok, Batavia, Samarang, and
Sourabaya in Java, and Padang on the west coast of Sumatra, is evident
to every person at all acquainted with the trade of those places; and I
will add a few facts by way of satisfying those who may be doubtful on
the point.

In the first place, then, British subjects residing in, or shipping
resorting to Manilla, are subject to the most arbitrary proceedings on
the part of the Spanish Government,[27] who order merchants from the
place, and ships from the harbour, at a day's notice, without ever
condescending to state their reasons for such proceedings. It was only
the other day that the British subjects residing in Manilla were, by an
unlooked for and arbitrary order of the Governor, deprived of the
professional aid of the medical practitioners of their own country then
resident among them. These professional men were not, indeed, ordered to
quit the place; but they were informed by an official proclamation, that
no medical man would in future be permitted to practice in Manilla,
unless in possession of a diploma from the college at Cadiz. This, of
course, was equivalent to an order to quit, as no English physician
could be expected to hav