170 THE COMPANY AND THE KING of despair. It prays the House that " if the said trade be found unprofitable to the commonwealth it may be suppressed, and if otherwise that then it may be sup- ported and continued by some public declaration.' ' But it presently rises to a higher tone. Drawn up by Tho- mas Mun and re- vised by Sir John Coke, the memori- al answers one by one all the objec- tions that had been urged during the past twenty-eight years against the Company. It is in fact Mun's " Dis- course of Trade," reduced to lan- guage of precision, and developing in detail economic ar- guments which Mun's book of 1621 had more timidly wrapped up. So far from weakening the nation, the Company urged that its fleets formed a vast training school for the English marine, a magazine from which the royal navy could draw both men and munitions of war. That so far from decreasing the national wealth, it brought A MOSLEM MERCHANT IN CEYLON.
