erecting of forts, establishing arfenals, and forming havens, docks, and yards, for building and repairing fhips, at proper distances, throughout his dominions. This fcheme, carried into execution, must have annihilated the power of Carthage; and the whole project ferves decifively to mark the judicious policy and comprehenfive grasp of the mind that formed it.

To bring to a conclufion thefe extended ftrictures on the trade maintained with Britain on the one hand, and India on the other, by the Carthaginians, we have only to fubjoin, that, after bravely ftruggling for nearly three hundred years to preferve their liberty and their commerce against the incroachments of the Romans, their empire was entirely fubdued, and at length, in the year before Chrift 146,* its ftately and beautiful metropolis was, by the renowned Scipio Emilianus, burned to afhes. But before the Romans could engross to themselves any confiderable portion of the valuable trade carried on through Egypt to India, another power, which, under the protecting wing of the Ptolemies, had rifen to an uncommon height

* Appian in Punicis, p. 85,

of

of maritime glory, was likewife to be subdued, and this was the republic of Athens, whofe fleets now fwarmed in the Indian feas, and wafted into the ports of the diftant Euxine the rich commodities of the Ganges.

THE FLOURISHING COMMERCE OF INDIA, IN THE REMOTEST PERIODS, PROVED FROM THE INSTITUTES OF MENU.

PREVIOUSLY, however, to our taking a furvey of the naval concerns of the Greeks with Hindoftan and Britain, we ought to confider in a more particular manner than we already have, the progrefs made by the Indians themselves in navigation, whom the number and magnitude of their rivers, added to their vaft inland commerce, muft have made very early expert in that science. The beft guide we can take with us during this retrospect upon the ancient commercial tranf actions of India, as well on the continent as by fea, is the book fo often mentioned before, the Institutes of Menu, the date of which, inan introductory discourse, Sir William Jones has fixed, by aftronomical observations, to about the twelfth century before Chrift, and

in that book we find numerous rules laid down, and cafes adjudged, that probably refer to many centuries preceding even that remote period. The two following ftanzas of chapter the eighth, ON JUDICATURE, AND THE DUTY OF KINGS, will demonftrate in how important a light the great legiflator of India confidered the commerce of that empire, and how minute and unwearied ought to be the attention paid to it by its fovereign. The tranflation, it fhould be remembered, is, throughout, ftrictly and fcrupulously verbal, fo that the reader cannot fail of being in pof feffion of the genuine meaning of Menu, and it may be added, that never before did any editor contrive to give to a verbal tranflation not only fuch perfpicuity but fuch unexampled elegance.

"With vigilant care fhould the king exert himself in compelling merchants and mechanics to perform their refpective duties, for, when fuch men fwerve from their duty, they throw the world (that is, a great commercial empire) into confufion." Inftitutes, p. 243.

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Day by day muft the king, though engaged in forenfic business, confider the great object of public measures, and inquire into the ftate of his carriages, elephants, horses, and

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cars,

his conftant revenues and neceffary expenfes, his mines of precious metals, or gems, (a proof that the Indian fovereign had fuch mines,) and his treasury." Ibid.

In truth, the Indian fovereigns had no fmall stimulus to attend to their duty in thus infpecting commercial concerns; for their profits are faid, in another place, to have been a twentieth part of the profit of every thing fold. The toll-gates, for the paffage internally of caravans of merchandize, feem to have been numerous in thofe early times, and the duty collected with the utmost strictnefs; for, by the 400th article of that chapter of the code, it is enacted, that

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Any buyer or feller, who fraudulently paffes by the toll-office at night, or any other improper time, or who makes a false enumeration of the articles bought, fhall be fined eight times as much as their value." P. 240.

"Let the king establish rules for the fale and purchase of all marketable things, having duly confidered whence they come, IF IMPORTED; and, IF EXPORTED, whither they must be fent; how long they have been kept; what may be gained by them; and what has been expended on them." Ibid.

"Once

** Once in five nights, or, at least, every fortnight, according to the nature of the commodities, (that is, whether they will keep or not,) let the king make a regulation for market-prices in the prefence of experienced men:" and this feems to have been the general practice of Eaftern fovereigns, for Pliny tells us, that, at Ocelis, on the coast of Arabia, the great mart, whither the Indian and Egyptian fleets annually failed to barter the commodities peculiar to their country for the myrrh and frankincense of Arabia; the king of that country also fixed the price of all the articles fold at that emporium, whether imported or exported; and he mentions, in proof of this affertion, that, in consequence of the high duties imposed on cinnamon at that port, that precious commodity rofe to fuch a high price at Rome, that a pound of it fold for one thousand fefterces, or about eight pounds fterling.*

"Let all weights and meafures be well af certained by him; and, once in fix months, let him re-examine them." P. 241.

Thefe paffages afford irrefragable evidence of the very rigid attention anciently paid to

* Plinii Nat. Hift. lib. xii. cap. 19.

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the