declares that "it shall not be lawful for any person or persons, save with the special leave or license of the Company, to import any tea into the United Kingdom from any port or place whatsoever ?" The reason had ceased, and the law was suffered to expire.

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The Commutation Act of 1784 (24 Geo. III. c. 38) which, in the passage already quoted from the report, is described as making "further provisions for securing to the public cheap teas,”"-an act the wisdom and policy of which are seldom disputed, it now suits the "reporter" to designate as a measure of the minister of the day to support the East-India Company at the expense of the nation," which, he affirms, was, after it passed, worse off than during the smuggling system." How stands the fact? From 1784 to 1786 the importation of tea rose from five millions of pounds to twenty-one million pounds and a half; the putting-up prices, instead of being set at the arbitrary will of the Company, were fixed by the act, and the Company were required to sell the tea without reserve, if but a penny per pound advance was made upon those prices.* If it be meant that the nation could buy tea more cheaply of smugglers, who paid no duty, than of the Company who paid 12 per cent., we can understand the proposition; but if it be asserted that the nation lost by the quadrupling of the regular importation of tea, and by its being offered them at a price reduced by sixpence per pound on the average of all teas, and by two shillings per pound on some sorts, the statement is

untrue.

With respect to the prices thus fixed by the Commutation Act, the writer says, "it is remarkable that the Company's prices, down to the present hour, exceed this (maximum) by full 15 per cent." This is intelligible enough; it is a charge that the East-India Company contravene the law. We were about to examine the truth of this allegation, when, reading a little further, we found this sapient reporter endeavouring to demonstrate the extravagant disproportion between the reduction in the Dutch prices of tea and those of the English Company, by a comparison between the respective prices of 1772 and 1827; in doing which it must have been his object to represent the Company's prices in the latter year as high as possible; yet (will it be believed?) the putting-up prices of the year 1827 are stated precisely the same as are set forth in the Commutation Act, although the writer had previously asserted that they were fifteen per cent. higher!

The Report contains the following passage respecting the Canadian tea trade:

The Company has lately sent teas direct from China to Canada. The results of this speculation afford matter of curious illustration. Your committee have before them the account of one of these sales, which took place at Quebec in the month of September last, and it enables them to exhibit the following comparison with the Company's sale prices in London, of a corresponding period.

September 1827.

Quebec. September 1827.
2s. 24d. per lb.

3 7
4 210

Hyson Skin

Young Hyson

Hyson

Best Souchong

..... 2 6

.....

London.
3s. 3 d.

** In some sorts of tea, the Company have voluntarily reduced the advance to one farthing.

This statement exhibits an average difference of 98d. per lb, in favour of the Quebec sales; or in other words, the London prices exceed those of Quebec by 27 per cent. It clearly follows from this, that, if the statute be complied with in both cases, the EastIndia Company exacts 30 per cent. profit from the British, and only 24 per cent. from a colonial customer. If this be not the true explanation, then the Company have one way of complying with the statute in Canada and another in London. They have, according to circumstances, two prices, which is not considered respectable in any trader whatever, and is altogether unpardonable in merchants who are sovereigns, enjoying a monopoly, which puts the whole of their countrymen at their mercy for a necessary of life! Your committee really fear the true fact is, that in the United Kingdom, where the Company have a complete monopoly, they fleece their countrymen of the last penny they can give, while in Canada, where they have to compete with the American smugglers, they must be content with what they can get.

This passage is decisive as to the animus of the reporter. He assumes that tea of a certain denomination is universally of the same quality, or that the same quality of tea is invariably shipped by the Company from Canton to England and to Quebec; whereas the very account before him shews the contrary. The putting-up prices of the teas in that account are from 4d. to 9d. per lb. lower than those expressed in the Commutation Act; the relative proportions of the prices of the different teas are utterly at variance with those in the London market; the inferior Souchong of London is fifty per cent. higher than the Congou; whereas the inferior Souchong sent to the Quebec market is more than eight per cent. lower than the Congou, &c. These obvious facts would have led a candid writer to the conclusion, not that the Company "fleece their countrymen of the last penny they can give," but that the tea sent to North America is of a different quality from that selected for the English market.

Another grand ground of attack upon the Company is that they have violated the provisions of the Commutation Act, by neglecting to provide the country with a supply of tea adequate to the demand. In order to prove this charge, the writer divides the quantity of tea annually consumed in the United Kingdom by the number of the population, according to the official returns, in the years 1800, 1810, and 1820; and finding, by this arithmetical process, that each individual would have only from nineteen and a half to twenty-seven and three-quarters ounces per annum, whilst "the poor convict population of New South Wales" consume sixty-five ounces per annum per head, he gives scope to his fiery indignation against " the monopoly-system." Now let us try the result by another mode. First, we would remark that the reporter, in the plentitude of his dexterity, assumes the quantity of tea. which paid duty at 26,398,805 lbs., which we presume to be correct, and includes amongst the consumers of this quantity the whole population of Ireland, not one individual of which tasted an ounce of it, unless he was a visitor in England. The tea destined for Irish consumption is shipped in bond free of duty (of which fact a Liverpool man must be fully aware); so that instead of representing the consumers of the twenty-six millions in 1800 at 15,149,258, the number should have been stated at 10,942,646. Even if the Irish were included, the consumption of tea is so small in that country (three millions and a half of pounds amongst nearly seven millions of souls), owing to the inability of the poorer classes to purchase it at any price, that it should have been left out of the calculation altogether. The quantity assignable to each individual will then be, not twenty-seven and three-quarters ounces per head, but about thirty-six and three-quarters ounces. But the reporter has, very conveniently for his argument, overlooked the article of coffee. If

he

he will remedy this trifling omission before he prepares his next report, he will find that by deducting from the population of England the number of consumers of coffee, and also the number of those who refrain from tea through fashion, caprice, or absolute incurable poverty, the allowance of tea to each individual in this country is pretty nearly the same as that of the "poor convict population of New South Wales."

Again, the writer says: At present, the consumption may be taken, as has been already stated, at 28,300,000 lbs., and the population being estimated at 22,700,000, the average per head is near twenty ounces. The consumption of tea, therefore, in reference to the numerical population only, and without any relation at all to the augmented wealth and comfort of the people, instead of increasing, as it would have done in a free trade, has fallen off in twentysix years by twenty-eight per cent. Instead of being, as it is at present, 28,300,000 lbs., it ought in fact to have been, even under the monopoly system, no less than 39,556,582 lbs. ;-so much for the services of the EastIndia Company to the nation. It is the high monopoly prices of the EastIndia Company which have arrested the increase of the consumption of tea.”Here we must once more take leave to repeat the word "coffee:" the system adopted by government of late years, of encouraging consumption by the reduction of duties, has completely succeeded in one article only, that of coffee, the consumption of which has doubled. This fact is carefully kept out of view by our ingenious report-maker.

But, after all, we have suffered the question to be begged: the reporter affirms that the Commutation Act binds the Company" to furnish the country with a supply of tea adequate to the demand." This ingenious individual is wonderfully shy of employing the specific language of his authorities. section to which he refers is as follows:

The

The said Company shall from time to time send orders for the purchase of such quantities of tea, and provide sufficient ships to import the same, as, being added to the stock in their warehouses, and to the quantities ordered and not arrived, shall amount to a sufficient supply for the keeping a stock at least equal to one year's consumption, according to the sales of the last preceding year, always beforehand.

Does the reporter mean to assert that the Company have not complied with this enactment? Will he persist in asserting that this enactment binds the Company to furnish the country with such a supply of tea as shall be equal to seven pounds and a half for each individual of the population,—a quantity which he declares to be 66 a moderate allowance ?"

After a few more statements and deductions derived from the erroneous representations we have particularized, the writer digresses to the subject of the India trade:

Your committee will say a few words upon this subject before they proceed. The total exports of the East-India Company, from Great Britain to China, in 1814, were £987,788; their whole exports to India in the same year were only £740,901, On the average of the four subsequent years, it appears the Company's exports to China had fallen off to £864,375. Through the infusion of free trade, the Indian commerce had advanced in the same period to £3,850,360. The commissioners of the customs or the East-India Company, or both, refuse, for the satisfaction of the public, to separate the Chinese from the Indian trade, and on this account it is not practicable to give the necessary comparison between free and monopoly trade, for a later period. One important fact, however, may be stated in 1814 our total export, from Great Britain and China together, amounted only to £2,559,033; in 1826 it was £4,739,359.

The trade, by sufferance, carried on between British India and China, illustrates, in a remarkable manner, the commercial capabilities of the latter country. In the year

year 1814, when, as already mentioned, the whole export between Great Britain and China was only £987,788, and that to India about £740,901, the colonial exports amounted to £1,533,576; that is, the exports of the two ports of Calcutta and Bombay to a single port of China, amounted to nearly the same sum as the whole exports of the East-India Company from Great Britain to the regions lying between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan.

Here again we meet with the same uncandid, and even false, representation of facts. It is true that the exports of the East-India Company were in 1814 only £987,788; but this was the smallest amount the writer could have selected: that of 1815 was £2,054,433. Why did he not give an average where the items varied so much? It is true that the colonial exports (as they are termed) were in 1814, £1,533,576; but it is not stated that a large portion of this sum consisted of bullion on the Company's account. It is true that our trade to India has increased from £2,559,032 in 1814, to £4,739,359 in 1826, which is, however, considerably less than the amount of 1821; but the real state of this trade is not explained. The reporter, as a Liverpool man, must know the real state of this trade; he must know that it consists of the specu lations of manufacturers, who have usurped the province of the merchants. The latter, in the manufacturing counties, are merely the agents of the exporting manufacturers, who undersell the merchants in foreign ports by submitting to severe sacrifices. In many parts of the world, in India in particular, British manufactures may be purchased at a cheaper rate than in England. This is a state of things which cannot last, and which affords a very insecure guide to legislators.

Upon the whole, this work is one of the most audacious attempts at deception ever ventured. It is rarely that the writer presumes to quote the authorities for his figures; when he does, he is not always correct. Thus, in one place, he states that "the East-India Company have asserted, that the woollen fabrics of this country were forced by them upon the Chinese; but for this opinion it is obvious there is no foundation; for, independent of the quantities of British woollens sent to China from our Indian possessions, in express contravention of the Company's Bye-Laws, the Americans furnished an additional supply, which in 1895 amounted to the value of 674,622 dollars." For this last statement he quotes, as authority, "East and West-India Trade, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 15th May 1827." We have referred to this official document, and no such statement is to be found there.

We do entertain a hope that the misrepresentations in this pamphlet (which is indeed a tissue of misrepresentation from first to last) will be the means of putting persons upon their guard against such delusive statements, whether they are published by individuals or associations.

THE EARLY RUSSIANS.

(From the Arabic of Yakut.)

THE following interesting details are extracted from the Geographical Dictionary of Yakut, an Arabian author of the thirteenth century. Of that work, three copies in MS. only are known to exist in Europe,-one at Oxford, another at Copenhagen, a third at St. Petersburgh. The original of these details, with a Russian version, has lately been published in the Russian capital.*

The Russians are contiguous both to the Bulgarians (Slavi) and the Turks: they have a language and religion of their own. Macadezy says that they live in an island called Wabia, and that they are surrounded by a lake which serves them as a defence. According to some accounts, their number amounts to many millions: they have nothing pastoral among them, no flocks or herds. They are frequently robbed by the Bulgarians. Every father places a sword in the hands of his young son, and says: "Thou must expect no other patrimony than this weapon!" Should any of their litigants be dissatisfied with the judgment pronounced by their king, he refuses to hear more on the subject, but advises them to settle the dispute by the sword; with them the sharpest weapon is the most successful. Having laid waste the city of Barda, they were swept away by the winds of the highest.

Under the calif Muchtidir, to whom God be merciful! Achmet, the son of Fotslaw, was sent ambassador from Bagdat to the king of the Slavi, and he has left a description of all that he saw in his journey. That description has surprised me much, and so it will my readers.

I have seen, says Achmet, many Russian merchants in a port on the Itil.† Their body is red, and they have nothing like what we should call clothing: the men throw a sort of beastly covering over one shoulder, so as to leave the right arm at liberty. Every man carries an axe, a long poignard, and a sword, without which he never leaves his house: their swords are long, and of Frangy make. Round the neck of every woman hangs a little box made of iron, copper, silver, or gold, according to her husband's means: over this little box is a ring, to which is fastened a knife. She has often round her neck a gold or silver chain. If a man be worth 10,000 drachmas, he employs a goldsmith to make a gold chain for his wife; and for every 10,000 he afterwards gains, he orders a new chain; so that women who have rich husbands wear several at the same time. They have also ornaments of false green pearls: so many of these are bought by their husbands for one drachma as will make a necklace,

The Russians are the filthiest of mortals: they never think of washing themselves after supplying their daily wants. When they come out of their country, they cast anchor in the Itil, land, and erect large wooden huts on both sides of the river: in these, ten or twenty live together. Every man has a long wooden seat, on which he sits with his wife, and the slaves he wants to sell. Great beasts are they all. Every morning a girl brings her master a vessel full of water, in which he washes his face, hands, and head; then she combs him. Though the water is thus greasy and filthy, he rinces his mouth with it, and after him so does every one belonging to him.

When

* Karamsin, in the Appendix to his History of Russia (second edition), has published a Russian version of these extracts, and his French translators have also rendered them, but very inadequately, into that Janguage.

Asiat. Journ.VOL. 26. No. 151.

Probably the Volga.

C