EUROPEAN NATIONS. 287 ment of the monopoly companies is a precisely pa- rallel case to this. There can exist no effectual means of creating resources for a commercial navy without a dissipation of the funds which support public industry, but such as have a tendency to extend the employment of capital in its natural channels. But the free employment of capital is sure to effect tliis ; and, if we wanted proofs of so inevitable a i esult, we have it already, as far as con- cerns our present subject, on comparing the number of seamen employed by the East India Company and by the free trade. The 20,000 tons of shipping of the former would give employment only to 2550 men ; but the 6l ,000 of the latter to 4270. This must be considered as conclusive. A stranger, examining our policy in regard to our commercial intercourse with the East, would be extremely apt, at first view, and without being aware of the almost insuperable obstacles which the growth of great abuses influencing our prac- tice and opinions, and even overawing the legisla- ture itself, have created, to pronounce, that our great object was to embarrass it, — to confer a mo- nopoly of it upon our poorer rivals, less capable than ourselves of conducting it, — and, in short, to proscribe it as a commerce detrimental to the na- tional interests, and rather to be tolerated as an un- avoidable nuisance than fostered as a national be-
