Saturday, March 20, 1813.

In searching for the causes, which have prevented an extensive introduction of the British manufactures into the countries subject to the dominion or influence of the British Crown in India, it naturally occurs; that no measure appears ever to have been concerted, for the general purpose of alluring the attention of the natives of India to the articles of European importation. This neglect, has evidently arisen from the opinions which have been so erroneously entertained, concerning the civil and religious prejudices of the Hindoos.

The evidence of Mr. Colebrooke has been adduced, to prove that those opinions are wholly unfounded; the following extracts from the Travels of Forster, in the years 1782-3, will further evince, that the Hindoos, far from entertaining any indisposition to engage in commercial dealings with strangers, have widely extended themselves in different foreign countries for that express purpose.

Herat.—"At Herat, I found in two Karavanseras about one hundred Hindoo merchants, who, by the maintenance of a brisk commerce, and by extending a long chain of credit, have become valuable subjects to the Government. When the Hindoos cross the Attock, they usually put on the dress of a northern Asiatic, being seldom seen without a long cloth coat, and a high cap[5]."

Turshish.:—"About one hundred Hindoo families, from Moultan and Jessilmere, are established in this town, which is the extreme limit of their emigration on this side of Persia. They occupy a quarter in which no Mahomedan is permitted to reside; and I was not a little surprised to see those of the Bramin sect distinguished by the appellation of Peerzadah, a title which the Mahomedans usually bestow on the descendants of their Prophet. Small companies of Hindoos are also settled at Meschid, Yezd, Kachin, Casbin, and some parts of the Caspian shore; and more extensive societies are established in the different parts of the Persian Gulf, where they maintain a navigable commerce with the western coast of India[6]."

Baku.—"A society of Moultan Hindoos, which has long been established at Baku, contributes largely to the circulation of its commerce; and, with the Armenians, they may be accounted the principal merchants of Shirwan. The Hindoos of this quarter usually embark at Tatta, a large insular town in the lower tract of the Indus; whence they proceed to Bassorah, and thence accompany the caravans, which are frequently passing into Persia: some also travel inland to the Caspian Sea, by the road of Candahar and Herat. I must here mention, that we brought from Baku five Hindoos; two of them were merchants of Moultan, and three were mendicants, a father, his son, and a Sunyassee (the name of a religious sect of Hindoos, chiefly of the Brahmin tribe). The Hindoos had supplied the little wants of the latter, and recommended him to their agents in Russia, whence, he said, he should like to proceed with me to England. The Moultanee Hindoos were going to Astrachan, merely on a commercial adventure[7]."

Astrachan.—"The Hindoos also enjoy at Astrachan every fair indulgence. They are not stationary residents, nor do they keep any of their females in this city; but, after accumulating a certain property, they return to India, and are succeeded by other adventurers. Being a mercantile sect of their nation, and occupied in a desultory species of traffic, they have neglected to preserve any record of their first settlement, and subsequent progress, in this quarter of Russia; nor is the fact ascertained, with any accuracy, by the natives of Astrachan[8]."

Having thus seen, that the natives of India are in no respect averse to engage in commercial dealings with strangers, and that no prejudices exist among them of a nature to prevent them from using our manufactures; we cannot but be forcibly struck with the reflection, that no systematic plan has ever been adopted by the East India Company, to attract the attention of the Hindoos to the various articles of our home manufacture, or to stimulate their speculation in the traffic of them. Whereas, in Europe, the Company have always found it necessary, for the disposal of their Indian Imports, to take active measures for drawing the attention of the nations of the European Continent to their sales in London.

The Directors, in their letter to Lord Buckinghamshire, under date of the 15th of April, 1812, (adverting to their sales in Europe,) observe, "That the Foreign Buyers repose confidence in the regularity and publicity with which the Company's sales are conducted; that the particulars of their cargoes are published immediately on the arrival of the ships, and distributed all over the Continent. That notices of the quantities to be sold, and periods of sale, are also published for general distribution; and that the sales of each description of goods are made at stated periods, twice in the year."

No measure of this nature has ever been projected for India; and yet, the predilection of the natives of India, both Hindoo and Mahomedan, for public shows, scenes of general resort, and exhibitions of every kind, is so well known, that we may confidently affirm, that nothing could have a surer tendency to draw them together, than a display, at periodical fairs, of our various manufactures. Fairs of this kind, for the sale of their home manufactures, have been held from time immemorial, in every part of India. The Company, therefore, needed only to engraft, upon an established usage of the Hindoos, a regular plan of periodical fairs; and, by thus adopting in India a course analogous to that which they have found it necessary to employ in Europe, they might generally have arrived at giving to Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, attractions of curiosity and mercantile interest, which would most probably have drawn to those settlements the wealthy natives from every part of the East; and have rendered the capital cities of British India, what Amsterdam, Frankfort, and Leipsic have long been in Europe, the resorts of all descriptions of people, and the repositories of every European article of use and luxury. From these different centres of commerce, the markets of the interior of India, and especially those held at the scenes of religious assembly, might be furnished with supplies; and, under the fostering encouragement of a wise and provident Government, the intelligence and enterprise of the natives of India might be called into action, and be stimulated, by a powerful motive, to exert in their own country those commercial talents that have obtained for them the encouragements, which, upon the unimpeachable testimony of Mr. Forster, they have long received in Persia, and in parts of Russia.

The advantage of collecting together, at stated periods and in established points, the productions of human industry and ingenuity, has been so universally felt by all nations; that there is scarcely a country, advanced to any degree of civilization, in which the practice has not prevailed. To effect this object, with a view to the extension of our export trade in India, active encouragement is alone requisite; but, in order to give it stability, native agency must be called forth into action. The supplies which (as was mentioned on a former occasion) were found at Poonah, were obtained from that source alone. The Parsee merchants at Bombay, are the principal agents of the Commanders and Officers of the Company's ships; such parts of their investments as are not disposed of among the European population, are purchased, and circulated in the interior, by the Parsees. The small supplies of European manufactures which find their way into the principal cities of the Deccan, proceed from this source: but there is reason to believe, that the articles which arrive at those places are too frequently of an inferior sort, or such as have sustained damage in the transit from Europe.

To give perfection to the great object here sketched out, it will be indispensably necessary that the local authorities in India should direct their most serious attention to this subject. As our Indian empire is our only security for our Indian trade, so our Indian trade must be rendered an object of vigilant concern to those who administer the Government of that empire. From the multiplicity and importance of their other avocations, that trade has not hitherto received all the consideration to which its high value is entitled; but, whenever an adequate regard shall be paid to it, it will become a duty of the Governments to take active and effectual steps, for drawing the attention of the natives to our exported commodities, and for promoting the dispersion of those commodities, within the sphere of their influence or power.

We now discern one operative cause of the comparatively small demand for, and consumption of, our European articles, in the Indian empire; a cause, however, which it is within our capacity to control, or to remove. And, after what has been summarily exposed, in this and in the preceding communication, it can be no difficult point to determine, whether this cause, or the alleged prejudices of the Hindoos, have most contributed to limit the extent of our Export Trade to India.

GRACCHUS.