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During the greater part of the last century, those two nations

divided the most considerable part of the East India trade

between them; the trade of the Dutch continually augmenting in a

still greater proportion than that of the Portuguese declined.

The English and French carried on some trade with India in the

last century, but it has been greatly augmented in the course of

the present. The East India trade of the Swedes and Danes began

in the course of the present century. Even the Muscovites now

trade regularly with China, by a sort of caravans which go over

land through Siberia and Tartary to Pekin. The East India trade

of all these nations, if we except that of the French, which the

last war had well nigh annihilated, has been almost continually

augmenting. The increasing consumptions of East India goods in

Europe is, it seems, so great, as to afford a gradual increase of

employment to them all.