is equal to more than twelve times the whole
of the property acquired by our India affairs, supposing the
45,000,000 L.

---
{167} Comparison between the total foreign trade of the country, to
that with the East Indies only, for 104 years.

Total Exports. Total Balance Exports to India.
in our favour.
From

1700
to 1760,
L540,000,000 L249,000,000 L18,000,000

1760 to
1785,
L370,000,000 L101,000,000 L25,000,000

1785 to
1805,
L576,000,000 L142,000,000 L40,000,000
____________ ____________ ____________
L1,486,000,000 L492,000,000 L80,000,000
____________ ____________ ____________

[Transcriber's note: L=GBP/Pounds Sterling.]

This is about a nineteenth part of our foreign trade, and the balance
is greatly against us.
-=-

[end of page #206]

remitted, to be all gain, together with one-half of the 83,000,000 L.
which surely is allowing the gain at the highest rate for both. {168}

Supposing, then, that the wars that India has occasioned have cost (or
the proportion of the debt they have occasioned) one-sixth part of the
whole of our debt, and that the profits on goods to India, and private
fortunes, came into the public treasury, there would still have been a
great loss to the state; but this has not been the case, the interest of
the debt has been levied on the people, and will continue to be so, till
all is paid off; which, according to the plan of the sinking fund, will be
in thirty-five years, so that we shall have about 750,000,000 L. more to
pay, {169} supposing we have peace all that time, and continue to
possess India.

There is something very gloomy in this view of national affairs, and
yet there is no apparent method of making it more pleasing.

It is, on the contrary, very possible, that as Malta, on account of its
being supposed the key to India, has cost us 20,000,000 L. within a
few years, that, in less than thirty-five years, it may cost us
_something_ more; and, it is not by any means impossible, that, before
that period, we may either lose India, or give it away; on either of
which suppositions, the arithmetical balance of profit and loss will be
greatly altered, to our farther disadvantage.

On the possessions in India, and the complicated manner in which our
imports (again exported) affect the nation, a volume might be written,
but it would be