mem of the Muscovy Company expended eighty thousand pounds sterling before they began to derive any gain from their transactions. The costly features of the commerce with Turkey have already been remarked upon. One of the most important grounds of complaint against the East India Company was, that it annually carried out of England thirty thousand pounds in the form of coin and bullion. It had a right under the terms of its charter to withdraw this amount, as it was needed for the purchase of merchandise in the East. The fancied evil of this drainage of specie was in time thought to be removed by the heavy exportation to other countries in Europe of the East Indian goods which had first been imported into the kingdom by the East India Company. The sale of these goods directed towards England a stream of gold and silver far greater than the original outflow.[1] It was firmly believed in that age that whenever the balance of trade was against a nation, its condition was one of great danger. The supposed constant withdrawal of coin from England in settlement of the balance in favor of the continental and eastern countries in their commercial dealings with the English people was a source of profound apprehension to English statesmen. These countries, in delivering the commodities that the English people needed, were, it was thought, unwilling to take a large amount of English goods in return, and in consequence the difference had to be covered by payment in coin. One of the strongest reasons for the formation of the London Company was, that in the future commercial relations of Virginia and England there would be little demand for money sterling, as a result of the fact that the balance of trade between the two would be in favor neither of the one nor the other, but would be kept exactly even. The anticipation of the adventurers was that the commodities of the
- ↑ Anderson’s History of Commerce, vol. II, p. 200.
