THE linen Drapers Answer To that Part of Mr. ●ARY his Essay on Trade, That Concerns The East India Trade.  
THAT that Trade is advantageous to England, which exports on Product, imports Commodities to be manufactured, furnisheth us with Necessaries for foreign Trade, and increaseth Seamen, is a Truth beyond Contradiction.  
But that all Trade is to be abandoned, that doth not answer all these Ends, or that the Interest of England and Holland, in respect to Trade, and the advantage made thereby, is not the same, is that which must be considered.  
It is also true, particular persons may improve their Estates by Buying and Selling, and the Nation be never the Richer; this holds good in all Inland Trade and our Home Consumption: but how this can be properly applied to any foreign Trade, or particularly to that of the East Indies, which in some degree answers all the fore-mentioned Advantages of Trade to England, is that our Essayer is to make out.  
To allow( what he saith is allowed) that the Product and Manufacture of the Kingdom, is the least part of what the East India Company export to India, is his allowing that it is a part of that Exportation( and we may inform him it doth appear upon Oath, that Communibus Annis, ever since the Company's New Charter, they have Exported above a Hundred thousand Pounds worth of Cloth yearly, and that Gold and Silver is but another part. He forgot to add, that every Ship set to Sea on an East India Voyage, cost Ten thousand Pounds at least, one with the other; that what of this is not laid out in Beef, Pork, Pease, biscuit, and the Produce of the Kingdom, is expended about the Ship, her Rigging, in labour and encouraging Useful Arts, &c. altogether as much to the Kingdoms advantage as the other.  
That these Ships are as useful to the Government, upon any Emergency, as to Trade, and that it is the Interest of the Nation to encourage such Ships.  
The returns of what is Exported to the East-Indies, being Granted to be in Commodities necessary, as well for Home expense as Exportation( calicoes and wrought Silks excepted) if we make appear the use of calicoes and Wrought Silks doth not prejudice, but increase the Sale of Woollen Manufactures: We hope the Essayer will see reason why the Wearing of them should not be Prohibited, and that he will not Petition the Parliament against the use of them in England.  
We desire he would not expect, we should follow him into Germany to pled their Cause against Sletias linens. We will endeavour to convince him, that the improvement of the Woollen Manufactures in Germany was not occasioned by the Importation and use of calicoes in England; that Manufacture being set on foot before the Fire of London, when the East-India Trade was nothing so considerable, and calicoes much dearer then they have been since; and that the cheapness of calicoes may be a means( if any thing can) to put them by that improvement: This is all he may expect from us on that Head.  
The present War, as we understand, hath put a stop to the Progress of the Woollen Manufacture in Germany. If England can afford ours so cheap, that they may not have encouragement to begin it again, that controversy is at an end. Plenty of calicoes is a certain Expedient to moderate the price of all Commodities, and thereby preserves and increases the foreign Trade( which is the profitable Trade of England) and Regulate the Home. To Prohibit the use, is to Prohibit the Importation, and destroy all; so that the Germans will return again to their making of Woollen, not because they cannot find Vent for their linen, but because not being supplied at Reasonable Rates from us; returning to the Woollen is more to their advantage.  
We will not Reflect on our Essayers Ingenious Descants on the Extravagances of the Age, his good Advice to the Nobility and Gentry, nor his Proposals to the Government; we wish him good Success in it. Our difference with him is upon his mistaken Maxims, That the way to improve the English, is to Prohibit the use of foreign Manufactures; and that to enrich the Kingdom, is to confine its Growth to our own Dominions; not considering that if we prohibit the use of the Commodities of other Nations, they may, and in all probability will do the same by ours; and that this will prejudice our foreign Trade, and that the very Prohibition is insensibly laying a Tax on the Nation, to make us pay the more for what we use, and abridging the King of so much Custom which the Subject must make good.  
We say it is the Interest of the Kingdom, that the Home Consumption should be little, of a Cheap and foreign Growth, and that our own Manufactures should be spent abroad and at the highest Market; because by all that is spent at home, one loseth what another gets, the Nation is not the richer. But a foreign Consumption is clear profit, adds ro the heap, without taking from the Inhabitant.  
The Trade of any Nation is its Riches, how it comes to pass that our Essayer hath made Trade of less advantage to England than Holland, is the next thing to be enquired into.  
He tells us the Dutch have little Land, are rather maintained by Buying and Selling, then Manufacturing; but England is a large Spot of Ground, hath a great Product of its own, gets by the employment of its People; and concludes its the Wisdom of the Government to Regulate foreign Trade by Methods that may make it useful in Promoting our own Manufactures.  
True it is England hath more Land than Holland, and a greater Product of its own; but this is no Argument that it is not the Interest of England as well as Holland, to encourage and promote Commerce. We say we are an iceland better accommodated to and more immediately depending on Trade( especially foreign Trade) than Holland itself. Our Ships are our Walls, our Trade our Riches. We are situated by Nature to be the Mart of Europe, it is the Restraint upon us( because England is not a Free Port) that all Trade doth not Center here. To prohibit the use of foreign Manufactures, were still to do us farther mischief; this would render our Shipping useless and lessen Navigation: and in our Naval Force lies not only the Welfare, but the very Being of Our Nation.  
It is the undoubted Interest of England to encourage our own Manufactures, and in proportion to their usefulness and benefit, such should be their encouragement. We differ with the Essayer only about the method.  
We conclude from daily experience it can be done by no Law so effectually, as by leaving Trade free and sheltering it against all Prohibitions. He from an evil and covetous Principle, like the Dog in the Fable, would catch at the shadow and lose the substance.  
The Manufactures in Holland, in proportion to their Hands, equal, if not exceed ours in England: If we have more of the Woollen, they have more of linen and Silk. It was once a received opinion amongst them, that the use of calicoes did prejudice their linen Manufacture, and therefore they Prohibited the use of it in Holland( they were not so quick sighted as our Essayer to see that it did affect the Woollen.) This gave advantage to our English East-India Company, that England at that time had the whole Trade for calicoes: The Dutch are an Ingenious people, and soon saw their error, and recalled their Placeat, but could never retrieve the Trade: The English East-India Company kept that part of it to the time of this French War, that by Intestine feuds and foreign misfortunes, they have lost both it and themselves.  
The Prohibition of the use of these Commodities in England, will either settle this Noble Trade on the Scots, or divide it between them and the Dutch. The English Manufacture will be prejudiced, not advantaged thereby: It will advance the price at Home, and so lessen the Trade, but not augment the Sale; and render it unfit for a foreign Market, because they may be supplied cheaper elsewhere.  
We conclude with the Essayer, and Humbly pray the Wisdom of the Nation would undertake the Patronage of our Trade, and particularly this of the East: Indies; to settle it on its True Basis, to make it a real advantage to the Kingdom, which can never be effectually done, but by leaving it free to that Company, they in their Wisdom shall think fit to Establish, that every Commodity may shift for itself.  
FINIS.