products and her textile fabrics are equally celebrated for richness and magnificence. Her raw material, so varied and valuable, has from time immemorial been worked up into the finest articles of dress. Her machines constructed for manufacturing purposes, and her tools and implements for agricultural uses, are of the simplest possible kind; and whilst they serve as memorials of an ancient civilization, demonstrate the skill and intelligence of those who have produced, by means of such appliances, effects so wonderful. The elegance and perfection of her manufactures have from the remotest times challenged the admiration, and invited the intercourse of civilized nations. Egypt, Persia, and Arabia, in the earliest periods of the world derived their luxuries from this extraordinary country. Some of her manufactures are, notwithstanding the advancement made in machinery, still unequalled. In the delicacy, fineness, and transparency of texture therein displayed, the muslins of Dacca defy the imitation of Manchester manufacturers. They are doubtless the finest instances to be found in the world of the production of a difficult effect by means apparently quite inadequate. The shawls of Cashmere are wonderful. The carpets of Mirzapore and some of the silk fabrics manufactured in Bengal are among the most valuable products of the kind brought to market.

A country so vast, possessing such diversities of climate and so many articles of luxury, could not fail to attract the attention of ancient as well as modern nations. The Arabian peninsula and Persia were favourably situated for Indian commerce, and we are informed by history that their navigators availed themselves at a very early period of the benefits which its merchandise offered to their enterprise. The Phoenicians, not content to receive the luxuries of the East by the long route established along the desert of Arabia through Petra and Palmyra, prepared a fleet on the Red Sea, and established a direct communication between ancient Tyre and India. Alexandria subsequently became the emporium of the same trade, and transmitted to Greece and other countries of

the Mediterranean the precious products of India. Arrian, the biographer of Alexander, informs us that the fleet placed under the command of Nearchus " was equipped for the specific purpose of opening the direct intercourse between India and Alexandria." When, after the lapse of ages, Alexandria fell into the hands of the Romans, it continued to maintain its commercial importance, and long enjoyed the advantages which the wealth of India conferred on it.

The commercial intercourse that was carried on with India by the merchants of Imperial Rome, is alluded to in one of Pliny's Letters, wherein he complains that such was the taste for the luxuries of the East, that Indian commerce had emptied Italy of its gold. In accordance with the fact here stated I may remark, that a short time ago, when in Tinnevelly, I saw several gold coins belonging to the period of the Emperors, bearing the images of Julius Cæsar, Caligula, and Tiberius; these coins had been discovered in one of the rivers of western India. The images and the superscriptions were beautifully perfect. In other parts of India, and in Ceylon also, especially in the neighbourhood of the pearl banks, Greek and Roman coins have frequently been found: from the progress made in the numismatics of India considerable light is now being shed on its history. As the commercial capital of the Roman empire, Alexandria was equally distinguished by its architectural monuments, opulence, splendour, and population. The valuable productions of India and other eastern countries were the source of its grandeur.

When the empire of the Cæsars was superseded by the fanatical followers of the warrior-prophet of Arabia, and the crescent took the place of the eagle, Bagdad became the commercial capital of the Mohammedan conquerors. These indomitable warriors subdued the realms of Imperial Rome, and possessed themselves of the commerce long enjoyed by its citizens from the Mediterranean Sea to the remotest parts of India. When in the course of political changes the Mohammedan empire was broken up and became enfeebled

by division, the commerce of the East partook of the same character, and Alexandria resumed somewhat of its former consequence. The same traffic revived the cities of Syria, and gave new importance to Constantinople. The revival of commerce in these more northern regions arose from the opening up of the route lying through the countries stretching from the Black Sea to the Indus and the Oxus. Concurrently with the progress of eastern commerce in any of these directions, it is remarkable that the same undeviating result attended it; wealth, luxury, splendour, were its certain consequents.

In the course of events, as civilization advanced westward, the jewels, the spices, and the precious fabrics of India, were in demand there also. The taste for these luxuries infused the spirit of improvement into the various arts of social life, and impelled to activity and enterprise those who had hitherto been content to exist on the necessaries of life. Industry was stimulated, and commerce was promoted, because production was the only means of supplying the wants which a growing refinement had created. From the new wants thus excited in Western Europe, there arose a necessity for some more direct communication with the source whence luxuries could be obtained. Hence arose

the commercial states of Italy: the cities of Venice and Genoa became the emporia into which the wealth of India and other Eastern commerce flowed; and so long as those cities retained its advantages, they far exceeded all others in their almost unbounded prosperity.

Down to the end of the fifteenth century, the articles which formed the material of Eastern commerce were conveyed, at least in a great part of the route, by overland arrangements; the Red Sea and the Euphrates being made. subservient to their transit. Eventually, however, as the art of navigation progressed, Henry of Portugal, whose skill was well fitted for the age in which he lived, discovered

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the way to India round the Cape of Good Hope, and a new stimulus was given to the trade carried on with India. 1498 Vasco de Gama made the voyage round Africa, and arrived at Calicut, on the western coast of India. The Portuguese "proposed nothing less than to become immediately the first commercial and maritime power in the world.” A bull from "God's Vicegerent" conferred on the Portuguese monarch the proud title of "Lord of the Navigation, Conquests, and Trade of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India." Thus Portugal attained the envied preeminence then sought, of becoming the chief among commercial states, and because she had possessed herself of the trade of India and other eastern countries.

Her distinction was, however, of short duration, for very soon the industrious and persevering sons of Holland followed in her wake, and for a while shared and eventually superseded the Portuguese both in commercial enterprise and political influence in the eastern seas: the trade of India was transferred from Lisbon to Amsterdam.

It was, however, reserved for England to improve the splendid trade with India, and to confer on its inhabitants the benefit which her free institutions and reformed faith so

well fit her to convey. The long and peaceful reign of Elizabeth favoured the growth and extension of her maritime power. Various attempts were made to reach the prize of Indian commerce by some new passage by the northwest, and also the north-east; but all failed. They attempted to seize the dazzling object by the difficult and dangerous navigation by way of Cape Horn. All these efforts had one object-the Indian trade. "The tide of maritime adventure," says the historian of British India, "which these splendid voyages were so calculated to swell, flowed naturally towards India, by reason of its fancied opulence, and the prevailing passion for the commodities of the East. The impatience of our countrymen had already

engaged thrice in a circuitous traffic with that part of the globe. They sailed to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, where they found cargoes of Indian goods conveyed overland; and a mercantile company, denominated the Levant Company, was instituted, according to the policy of the age, to secure to the nation the advantages of so important a commerce." The capture of some of the Portuguese merchant-vessels richly laden with spices, calicos, silks, gold, pearls, porcelain, ebony, &c., " inflamed the imagination of the merchants, and stimulated the impatience of the English generally to be engaged in so opulent a commerce."

In 1599 Elizabeth was petitioned to grant permission to certain parties to engage in the trade with India by the Cape of Good Hope. A royal charter was accordingly granted in 1600, and in May the following year the first fleet of the East India Company sailed for India direct by the southern cape of Africa. And as we now see, not only did the trade of India fall into the hands of the English, but the vast territory also, whose products formed its staple articles. And as time has advanced, England, possessed of the advantages which the wealth of India confers, has gradually risen in wealth and power, till she has acquired a position the most exalted ever attained by any civilized nation. London, the emporium of her trade, now sits undisputably as the queen among the cities of the nations. But that this proud posi

tion may not be forfeited, and her national glory diminished, it behoves her to understand the conditions on which she has been put in trust with the mighty interests now in her keeping; else, like Venice, and Lisbon, and Amsterdam, and the commercial cities of antiquity, she too must give place to some other power in the course of commercial and political revolution. It may be hoped that her fidelity in the discharge of her high duty will continue to her the stewardship now subsisting in relation to India.