The First Contest for Singapore 1819-1824

Preface

For directing my attention to the problem of the British acquisition of Singapore as a problem worth investigating, as well as for subsequent encouragement, I am deeply indebted to Professor Dietrich Gerhard, now of Washington University, St. Louis. For various acts of kindness I owe thanks to my colleague, Professor Fred A. Cazel, Jr.; to Dr. J. Norman Parmer, now of the University of Maryland; and most recently to Professor C. Northcote Parkinson, of the University of Malaya.

Since none of these scholars has seen the manuscript of this study, I can thank them warmly while relieving them of responsibility for its defects.

To librarians and libraries I am indebted: to Miss Roberta K. Smith, Reference Librarian of the Wilbur L. Cross Library of the University of Connecticut, for procuring many volumes for me through interlibrary loan; to the libraries of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia universities and Trinity College (Hartford), for use of their facilities; to the Commonwealth Relations Office, London, for permission to have two volumes of Dutch Records microfilmed.

I must thank Mrs. Betty G. Seaver for her personal interest in the manuscript, much of which, to its benefit, she typed.

Finally, I must express appreciation to the administrative authorities of the University of Connecticut for a semester’s sabbatical leave which permitted a great deal of the research and writing to be completed.

The use of variants in the spelling of place names, as they appeared in the sources, may annoy but I trust not confuse the reader, whose indulgence I bespeak.

HARRY J. MARKS.

Storrs, Connecticut.

Introduction

On the thirtieth day of January 1819, an official in the service of the East India Company signed an agreement with a Malay chief granting the Honorable Company the right to establish a commercial factory on the island of Singapore. This act kindled a controversy with the Netherlands which was only extinguished five years later by a comprehensive treaty.

The first narrative of the episode to appear between the covers of a book consisted of a paragraph in Peter Auber’s An Analysis of the Constitution of the East India Company..., (London, 1826),1 as follows:

In the year 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles, then Lieutenant Governor of Bencoolen,? was deputed by the Governor General the Marquis of Hastings to proceed to the Straits of Malacca with the view of fixing upon some settlement in the Eastern Archipelago which should present a favourable position for counteracting the efforts which the Dutch were exerting to engross the whole of the trade of the Eastern Islands, to the total exclusion of the British trader. The result was the acquisition of the island of Singapore.3 Considerable differences arose out of this transaction. . . . In order to adjust such differences and to remove all further causes of disagreement. . . in India, a negotiation was opened by Great Britain in 1823 and brought to a conclusion in 1824, when a treaty between His Britannic Majesty and the King of the Netherlands bearing the date of the 17th March in that year was concluded and signed; by which the British agreed to withdraw from the island of Suma-

1 Peter Auber, An Analysis of the Constitution of the East India Company and of the Laws Passed by Parliament for the Government of their Affairs at Home and Abroad, to which is Prefixed a Brief History of the Company and of the Rise and Progress of the British Power in: India (London, 1826), pp. 381—382.

Variant spellings include Singapoer, Sincapoor, Sincapoora, Singapoora, Sinkapoor, Singhapoera, Sincapoera, Singapour, Singahpura, Sincapure, Sincapore.

tra, ceding (with the consent of the East India Company) the settlement of Bencoolen and its dependencies to the Dutch in exchange for which the whole of the Dutch possessions on the continent of India, as well as the settlement of Malacca, were transferred to Great Britain, with the undisputed possession of Singapore.

Peter Auber as Assistant Secretary to the Honorable Court of Directors could know the contemporary sources, and his reputation for reliability was good. Yet the errors in this brief statement foreshadow the inaccuracies of later accounts. In indisputable fact, Raffles received his authorization from Hastings not in 1819 but in the autumn of 1818. The negotiations were begun in 1820, not 1823, and were then dropped. They were resumed in 1823 not upon British but Netherlands initiative. In the light of British predominance in the trade of the Indies, including Java, Auber’s accusation of Dutch efforts toward engrossment exhibits national bias, though not devoid of a basis in fact. More important than these details, the omission of the background of politics, economics, diplomacy, and personalities, completely excusable in Auber’s concise paragraph, also invalidates more ample accounts.

The story of the acquisition of Singapore by the British deserves better treatment. From our perspective it appears as a transitional episode combining some of the traits of the colonial adventuring of earlier generations with harbingers of the imperialist rivalries of the future. The inadequacies of existing accounts would of themselves justify restudy of the acquisition of Singapore, but two additional considerations also encourage reconsideration. First, by shunning the temptation to write a general narrative of colonial competition in the Eastern Seas and by focusing attention strictly upon the issue of the acquisition of Singapore, one may hope to uncover the motivations behind decisions. In this sense, the data illustrate the nature of historical causation, the interplay of chance and cultural determinism and the role of the individual. A second product of the restriction of attention to the one issue is the depiction, step by step, of the negotiation of a dispute; and since one of the participants was George Canning, it is possible to contribute a fragment of detail to the understanding of that statesman in action.

Chapter I British And Netherlands Interests In South-east Asia

A. The Return of the Former Dutch Colonies

At the outbreak of the French Revolution, the Dutch had possessed an extensive colonial empire with possessions in both East and West Indies. When the Netherlands fell to France, the British seized these territories as a war measure to prevent the French from enjoying their fruits. Meanwhile, from his exile during the Napoleonic years, the Prince of Orange, who became the Stadhouder William VI upon the death of his father in 1806, had sought to assure his country’s future status in various ways, eventually as a client of Britain’s; and since Netherlands independence coincided with one of the objectives of British policy, it had received Lord Castlereagh’s support. Thanks to the Dutch uprising against French domination in November 1813, Holland did not owe her liberation wholly to the arms of the allies and was therefore able to emerge among the victorious nations as an independent state. Completing the metamorphosis, on 16 March 1815, the head of the House of Orange, having previously (2 December 1813) taken the title of Sovereign Prince, now assumed royal rank as King William I.1

On the disposition of the former Dutch colonies, the Peace of Paris, 30 May 1814, was silent.2 A special treaty determining the restoration of colonial possessions was concluded between Great Britain and the Netherlands on 13 August 1814. The former engaged to restore the colonies, factories, and establishments held by Holland on 1 January 1803, after the Peace of Amiens (27 March 1802), and before the renewal

1 Gustaaf Johannes Renier, Great Britain and the Establishment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, 1813-1815 (The Hague, 1930). Among older general accounts, see Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, vol. VI (Brussels, 1926), pp. 231—245; and Petrus J. Blok, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk, vol. IV 2nd ed. (Leiden, n.d. [1915]), pp. 173—225.

Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par le royaume des Pays-Bas, ed. E. G. Lagemans, 10 vols. (The Hague, 1858-1890), I, 10. Article 8 refers only to French and Spanish possessions.

of hostilities (16 May 1803), with the exception of the Cape of Good Hope and three West Indian territories (Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo, now parts of British Guiana). In return, two million pounds sterling were to be made over to the Netherlands to be expended upon fortifications facing France. The eighth article of the treaty concerned the slave trade and obligated the King of the Netherlands to forbid his subjects “from taking any share whatever in such inhuman traffic.” 3

The restoration of the bulk of the former Dutch colonial empire conformed to certain British objectives which were more influential than any hypothetical immediate interests which a later age might envisage as calling for the retention of these valuable territories.4 It is clear, from the disposition of the Cape and the three West Indian posts, that the British government lacked neither power nor right to retain its conquests. The Cape was seen as an indispensable station along the sea route to India, while economic, political, and strategic considerations led to the retention of the Dutch territories in Guiana. The retrocession of the bulk of the Dutch colonies resulted from the acknowledgement of certain moral issues, a desire to prevent other European powers from presenting claims, and, most significantly, from the implementation of the general British policy toward the Netherlands.

The new state was to be provided with the means of effectively stalling French ambitions in the direction of the shores of the North Sea from which England might be threatened. To keep the balance in

4 J. J. Meinsma, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche Oost-Indische Bezittingen, 2 vols. in 3 parts (Delft, 1872-1875), II (Part 1), 132—133, attributes the return of the former Dutch colonies in part to ignorance of their value, and in demonstration of this refers to “the slight opposition to the cession even on the part of the Directors of the English Company.” Their indifference “presumably” derived from an apprehension that the East Indies, especially Java, would be declared crown colonies, and from the circumstance that under British admininstration their expenses had exceeded revenues. See also Lord Minto in India... 1807 to 1814, ed. the Countess of Minto (London, 1880), pp. 99, 103, for evidence of indifference toward Indian matters in 1806 and 1808. In explanation of the retention of the three “West Indian” territories, the prime minister wrote to the Duke of Wellington in September 1814: “It has been determined to retain Demerary, Essiquibo, and Berbice. These settlements are most valuable to us, not only as they are occupied almost exclusively by British proprietors, but likewise as they contain the principal cotton establishments in America, for the use of our manufactures.” Correspondence, Despatches, and Other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh, ed. Charles William Vane, 12 vols. (London, 1848-1853), X, 132—133. Lord Liverpool to the Duke of Wellington, Fife House, 23 September 1814.

Europe, some states of moderate size would be helpful, “not too powerful,” as a Dutch historian has recently summarized the policy, “lest they undertake an active foreign policy on their own account, but above all, not too weak either, in order that they should be able to resist the early stages of an invasion until a great power could come to their aid, and so that they could maintain an independent existence.” 5 An enlarged, independent Netherlands fitted into this conception. For this reason, Castlereagh sponsored the addition of the former Austrian Netherlands to Holland; for this reason the two million pounds sterling were to be used to construct Dutch barrier fortresses against a French invasion; and largely for this reason the colonies were restored to the Dutch. As a British representative told the Sovereign Prince in another connection in 1813: “We wish you to enrich yourselves by trade, for it is to our advantage that you should again become rich.”6 The sincerity of this desire is authenticated by the return of the colonies; yet it applied only within limits, and these limits were shortly to be reached.

B. The Economic Apathy of the Netherlands

The former Austrian Netherlands, hereafter termed Belgium, which were allocated to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, had formed a component in the French imperial economy. As such, Belgium had developed a considerable manufacturing industry and at the close of the wars probably constituted the most advanced industrial region on the continent. The former United Provinces, to the north, had been the great eighteenth century metropolis of finance and waterborne commerce. The amalgamation of production, finance, and commerce under one management, as it were, resembled a vertical combination predestined to be profitable.? Yet the prosperity of the new state was far from assured. The former financial heart of Europe, Amsterdam, wrote a

5 C. Smit, Diplomatieke Geschiedenis van Nederland inzonderheid sedert de vestiging van het Koninkrijk (The Hague, 1950), p. 128.

Renier, Great Britain and...the Netherlands, p. 155.

Hajo Brugmans, Geschiedenis van Amsterdam: Het nieuwe Amsterdam van 1795 tot op den tegenwoordigen tijd (Amsterdam, 1925), p. 96. D. Kouwenaar, Amsterdam, “Kroondraegster van Europe” (Rotterdam-The Hague, 1947), p. 266. “At the time of the liberation from the French yoke, the Netherlander imagined the brightest future for himself owing to the revival of trade and shipping.” Ulrich Gerard Lauts, Geschiedenis van de vestiging, uitbreiding, bloei en verval van de magt der Nederlanders in Indië, 7 vols. (Groningen- Amsterdam, 1852-1866), VI, 134.

contemporary, was a “ville morte.” 8 The Dutch provinces could not furnish the consumers capable of absorbing the output of Belgian textile mills which had developed to supply the markets of France. Nor were the Netherlands colonies immediately capable of replacing the lost markets of France: in 1815 there was virtually no contact with the colonies. Not only were there few seaworthy ocean-going ships,9 but “nobody in Amsterdam remembered how to fit out a ship for the Indies,” a technological amnesia which was responsible for not a few misfortunes and wrecks.10

For want of the almost vanished merchant marine which had formerly engaged in the Indies trade, one might have expected feverish activity in the shipyards of Holland. The countervailing factors were formidable, however. In the eighteenth century, leadership in naval architecture had passed to France; the sanding up of Dutch harbors and river mouths had compelled the shipbuilders either to reduce the size of their vessels, or, if they constructed ships of larger cargo capacity, then to design them: for shallow draft, with the result that they proved sluggish and poor sailers. Furthermore, while ships carpenters had emigrated and shipbuilding in other countries had multiplied, the naval architects at home had become captives of obsolete designs. It was indicative of the sad state of a once profitable branch of export industry that a decade after the new kingdom had been launched, more than a third of the Dutch overseas merchant marine, and four-fifths of the tonnage engaged in long voyages, had come from foreign yards.11

The fisheries had formerly provided the Dutch shipping industry with a product suitable for sale in the Iberian peninsula and the Mediterra-

8 Quoted by J. H. Wijnand, Het Schipryck Amsterdam (Baarn, 1946), p. 20. An Englishman visiting Amsterdam in 1819 noted “its present depressed condition.” William Jacob, A view of the Agriculture ...of Germany, and Parts of Holland and France (London, 1820), p. 41.

® There were more than a thousand vessels at the time of Napoleon’s fall, but scarcely fifty suitable for oceanic traffic. Wijnand, Schipryck Amsterdam, p. 19.

10 Brugmans, Het nieuwe Amsterdam, pp. 116—117.

11 J. W. Bonebakker, De Scheepsbouwnijverheid in Nederland (Haarlem, 1936), pp. 1—2. Before the French occupation, Amsterdam had 48 shipyards, each employing an average of 100 men; in 1816, forty yards employed a total of only 400 workers. In other words, some 4400 men with shipbuilding skills must have emigrated, found other employment, were unemployed, or had died, without being replaced. Emile Verviers, De Nederlandsche Handelspolitiek tot aan de Toepassing der Vrijhandelsbeginselen (Leiden, 1914), p. 191. Falck, the minister of education, colonies, and the national economy, wrote in 1821: “The yards, formerly so numerous and flourishing, were diminished [in number] and in a state of decline....” Anton Reinhard Falck, Gedenkschriften, ed. Herman Theodoor Colenbrander (The Hague, 1913), p. 255.

nean littoral. The government had hitherto assured the vessels engaged in this trade a return cargo by favoring the importation of Spanish and Portuguese salt. Now, however, the Kingdom of the Netherlands for political reasons yielded to English urging and placed upon English salt the same duty as that collected upon the southern product.!? Since the distances were so unequal, the English salt became available at a lower price in Holland, and the shipment of fish to Spain and Portugal, for lack of a return freight, lost its savor.

It was not so much a deficiency in capital 13 as the absence of a spirit of enterprise which characterized the business life of Holland. The king expected much from the prospect of Dutch capital flowing into the proper domestic channels, and in order to curb the export of capital he subjected the issuance of new securities to state supervision. Yet it proved impossible to coerce Dutch investment into following the desired direction.14 A decade after the expulsion of the French, a foreign observer noted the tendency (foreshadowing J. P. Marquand’s Boston) of the Amsterdam investors to place their funds in government loans: “Amsterdam is the greatest market in Europe for this kind of business.” But while the yields were profitable to the investor, they did not nourish domestic industry, to say nothing of shipping nor did the state benefit from the collection of customs receipts.15 Again: it was customary, prior to 1824, for ships to be owned jointly, by shares distributed among two or three dozen families. This spread the risks, to be sure, but at the cost of unified, enterprising leadership.1®

One incident may epitomize the dearth of entrepreneurial zest. In the summer of 1815, two residents of Ghent came to Amsterdam with a plan to initiate a steamboat lighterage service to the roadstead at Texel. The Chamber of Commerce failed to perceive any merit in this plan, which was consequently dropped. As a results, the honor of exhibiting the first steamboat on the IJ fell to an Englishman (in 1816). It was not until 1823 that the first privately owned Netherlands steamer came into operation, and characteristically, the initiative emerged not at Amsterdam but at Rotterdam. It might be noted finally in this connection, 12 Ernst Baasch, Holländische Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Jena, 1927), p. 427.

13 Lauts, Geschiedenis, VI, 134: “There was still much capital in the country.” 14 Willem Maurits Frederik Mansvelt, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche

Handel-Maatschappij, 2 vols. (Haarlem, n.d. [1924]), I, 19—20.

15 Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland van 1795 tot 1840,

Achtste deel, Regeering van Willem I, 1815-1825, ed. Herman Theodoor

Colenbrander, 3 vols. (The Hague, 1915-1916), I, 680. Meyendorff to D’Oubril,

The Hague, 23 October 1823. 186 Wijnand, Schipryck Amsterdam, p. 24.

that no Dutch firm was capable at that time of manufacturing steam powered marine propulsion equipment, the only concern in the kingdom exhibiting such evidence of modernity being the works of John Cockerill at Seraing, another instance of Belgian manufacturing leadership.17

The eighteenth century was gone forever but the inefficient, costly methods of conducting business remained. “Netherlands trade was wholly altered in character:” in place of playing the profitable role of Europe’s middleman, the Dutch now sank to the level of local trade, with local Dutch industry but slightly developed. “The Baltic trade, formerly our most important source of earnings was totally lost;’ and the Americans took over the shipping of Odessa granite. Rotterdam, whose activity in Rhine river traffic was still modest, conducted a reasonable amount of business with England.18 The only enterprising shipper in the entire country was Anthony van Hoboken of Rotterdam, originally a dealer in butter and cheese. The British had imposed a tariff upon these products deliberately to favor Irish dairy exports.19 Van Hoboken was the first Dutch business man, following the expulsion of the French, to send a ship to the East Indies, which after many mishaps reached Batavia with a cargo of stone, iron wares, butter, meat, dried fish, and gin, while homewardbound, it brought a cargo of coffee and sugar not to Amsterdam, one time sovereign city of the colonial trade, but to little Rotterdam.2° Yet, if the number of ships entering and clearing the port of Rotterdam was any indication of its activity one can hardly perceive a constant improvement of business.?1

The population statistics for Amsterdam reveal the extended de-

17 Ibid., pp. 20—22. P. Mijer, Jean Chrétien Baud (Utrecht, 1878), p. 209.

13 Mansvelt, Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij, 1, 30; 40—41.

19 William Smart, Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century, 1801-1820 (London, 1910), pp. 483—485. Baasch, Holländische Wirtschaftsgeschichte, pp. 426—427. Appaently there was no Irish cheese industry at that time.

20 Wijnand, Schipryck Amsterdam, pp. 19—20. A. Hoynck van Papendrecht, Gedenkboek A van Hoboken & Co. 1774-1924 (Rotterdam, 1924), Chap. 10, p. 84 ff.

21 Number of ships entering and clearing the three sections of the port of Rotterdam.

Source: Kamer van Koophandel en Fabrieken te Rotterdam, 1803-1928. Gedenkboek, ed. H. J. D. van Lier (Rotterdam, 1928), p. 157.

pression which afflicted the city, as well as the sluggish rate of recovery: they show that the city only recovered a population as large as that at the time of the first French invasion (1795) by the middle of the nineteenth century, or roughly two generations later. In 1814 the city still fitted within its seventeenth century walls.22 Antwerp, officially released from its Snow White-like suspended animation since 1585 by the opening of the Scheldt through a secret article of the Treaty of Paris,28 was essentially Belgian and the natural outlet for Belgian industry. “Moreover, the vessels frequenting it were all either Dutch or foreign; it had no florishing export houses, it possessed no shipping firms”’.24

In a report addressed to the King on 12 July 1823 on “The State of Commerce at Amsterdam,” Anton Reinhard Falck, the Minister for Colonies, National Industry, and Education, described two circumstances which appeared to him likely “in the long run [to] keep the trade of Amsterdam less lively than at Rotterdam and Antwerpen: Ist. the superb location of Rotterdam for transit [trade]... 2nd. that Antwerp has about it a prosperous population of fully three million accustomed to ample consumption [of goods,] whose needs in overseas products this port almost exclusively supplies.” 25

To afford some measure of protection for Belgian industry, confronted with the output of Britain’s factories, the Netherlands government adopted a moderate tariff law on 16 October 1816,26 thereby vexing Dutch merchants who felt that the law protected the Belgian manufacturer at the cost of Holland’s trade. Conversely, the Belgians complained that the protection afforded to Flemish manufactures was delusive. “The duties charged upon British manufactures and East India produce,” wrote the English chargé d’affaires at The Hague in 1816, “are too inconsiderable to prevent the ruin of the Belgian establishments.” 27

22 Population of Amsterdam 1826 200,000

Source: Brugmans, Het nieuwe Amsterdam, p. 104; p. 99.

Renier, Great Britain and...the Netherlands, p. 248.

Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, VI, 347.

Anton Reinhard Falck, Ambts-Brieven, 1802-1842 (The Hague, 1878),

This tariff showed “a strong protectionist tincture, favoring the import of

raw materials while impeding their export, and facilitating the export of

finished goods.” Baasch, Holländische Wirtschaftsgeschichte, p. 424. The im-

plication in his statement that the tariff was protective was scarcely borne out

in practice.

27 Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken, I, 41. G. W. Chad to Castlereagh, The Hague, 27 September 1816. Mansvelt, Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij, 1, 20.

RES

Tariff protection at home and assured markets abroad appeared to be the prerequisites for the achievement of industrial and commercial prosperity of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. For the five surviving textile mills of Leiden in 1816, the sole hope for the future lay in the “new development of trade with their chief remaining markets: the Levant and the Indian colonies.” “Protection and still more protection remained the watchword.” 28 If this was the outlook of one of the few Dutch industrial centers, it is not surprising that the Belgians initially demanded nothing less than a flat embargo.?9 The tariff of 1816 failed to impose prohibitory duties: it was natural for the Belgians to expect government assistance in securing the colonial markets, yet the ascendency of “liberal” ideas excluded the possibility of vigorous state intervention.39 Yet in some manner, it might be possible to limit the extent to which foreigners were able to profit from the Netherlands East Indies and reserve this area to King William’s. subjects. The chief beneficiaries of trade in the Netherlands colonies were Englishmen: it was therefore evident that any policy seeking to reserve the colonies to the Low Countries would take the form of anti-British measures. Netherlands policy in the colonies during the post-war decade was hardly effective in achieving this purpose, it may have been confused, contradictory, and hesitant, but it was based neither upon royal ingratitude for past favors nor upon the petty malice of rapacious Dutchmen rampant in the Archipelago, as it appeared to some Englishmen. It corresponded loosely to some of the needs of the new state, as vaguely sensed rather than accurately analyzed. In short, it was no less rational than was British policy.

C. British Interests in South-East Asia

If the East Indies began to appear to Netherlanders as a region essential to the healthy development of their national economy, Asia was becoming increasingly important to the British as well. For present purposes, in the decade following the closing of the Napoleonic wars, three areas may be distinguished: India, China, and “the Archipelago”, or “the Eastern Islands.” Under the governance of the East India

28 Petrus Johannes Blok, Geschiedenis eener Hollandsche Stad. Een Hollandsche Stad in den nieuweren tijd [i.e., vol. IV of Blok’s history of Leiden] (The Hague, 1918), pp. 146—147.

22 Robert Demoulin, Guillaume Ier et la transformation économique des Provinces Belges, 1815-1830 (Liége-Paris, 1938), p. 124.

30 Ibid., pp. 147—150. Cf. Daniel Wilco van Welderen Rengers, The Failure of a Liberal Colonial Policy: The Netherlands East Indies, 1816-1830 (The Hague, 1947). l

Company, exercised through the Governor General in Council at Fort William, in Calcutta, British India had been opened to private trade by the Act of 1813 renewing the Company’s Charter. A handful of petty enclaves on the continent of India constituted the Dutch factories. China at this time meant Canton, the only port at which foreigners were tolerated, and where the East India Company constituted the sole authorized English business enterprise.31 The Eastern Islands, an ambiguous term, sometimes synonymous with “the Archipelago”, included Sumatra, where the East India Company held a post at Bencoolen (Fort Marlborough) and the Dutch had various claims; Java, under the Dutch Governor-General at Batavia; the Moluccas or Spice Islands likewise under the Dutch and only vaguely delineated; Borneo in which both English and Dutch asserted claims; and assorted other islands. In the Strait of Malacca, the East India Company held Prince of Wales Island (Pulo Penang, Fort Cornwallis), while under the treaty of 1814 they were to return Malacca, on the Malayan mainland.

With the conclusion of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, the opening of new markets to absorb the production of Britain’s war-expanded industries became an issue of vital concern.32 Although protective tariffs were being adopted on the Continent and in America, there is scant evidence, at least to 1817, that such attempts to exclude British products had evoked alarm in government circles. There was, however, an awareness during the postwar distress that an expansion of foreign markets was essential. Early in 1820 Lord Castlereagh informed the Netherlands ambassador that this was the prevailing idea in England.34 “One universal cry of distress is heard throughout the land,” declared the Edinburgh Review, with hyperbole, in December 1816.35 “The ordinary channels through which the various produce of art and industry was [sic] formerly distributed, are completely obstructed.... All those manufactures which depended for support on the foreign market, were suddenly choked...” 36 “The country is overloaded with super-

31 This is not precisely true, but can stand here. See below, pp. 147—148.

52 Smart, Economic Annals... 1801-1820, pp. 490—492 ; 529—530, referring to the year 1816.

Pieter Hendrik van der Kemp, “De Geschiedenis van het Londensch Tractaat

van 17 Maart 1824,” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van

Nederlandsch-Indié, vol. 56 (The Hague, 1904), pp. 205—206. Fagel to

Van Nagell, London, 14 January 1820.

fluous goods for which its merchants can find no outlet; and hence their eagerness to pour them into every open market,” viz. into Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.37 This melancholy picture of commercial stasis was hardly corroborated by the details which followed. “The markets of Britain have... been so overstocked that all these restrictions on the introduction of British goods [in Europe and America] have been found unavailing. Those goods have been poured into the markets of America and Europe, in spite of restrictions and heavy duties; and the consequence has been, that many late establishments in Europe have been ruined, and that a serious check has been given to the rising manufactures of America.” 38 In Parliament, Brougham charged that “the Government had entirely abandoned all care for the commercial interest of this country,’89 and in fact, the agricultural distress occasioned far more Parliamentary attention than the growing pains of commerce and industry.49 In the quest for foreign markets, the continent, the United States, and South America all seemed promising,4! yet some voices were raised to herald the prospects in Asia.

The character and importance of British trade with India underwent a notable change with the reestablishment of peace. Prior to 1814 there had been virtually no exports of finished cotton cloth to the East; but in large part thanks to the increased use of machines to reduce costs, there resulted ‘‘a most extraordinary increase in the exports of cotton goods to India,”’42 accompanied by the destruction of the Indian village textile producer.43 India, formerly a notable exporter of fine cotton goods, was in the midst of a metamorphosis into a source of raw cotton and a market for Lancashire cotton cloth. “By the successful introduction of the British muslins,” wrote Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, President of the India Board, in 1823, „you have completely destroyed that which till within a very short time has been their great