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Thirdly, the East Indies is another market for the produce of the

silver mines of America, and a market which, from the time of the

first discovery of those mines, has been continually taking off a

greater and a greater quantity of silver. Since that time, the

direct trade between America and the East Indies, which is

carried on by means of the Acapulco ships, has been continually

augmenting, and the indirect intercourse by the way of Europe has

been augmenting in a still greater proportion. During the

sixteenth century, the Portuguese were the only European nation

who carried on any regular trade to the East Indies. In the last

years of that century, the Dutch began to encroach upon this

monopoly, and in a few years expelled them from their principal

settlements in India.