I believe, of the coast of Africa.  It becomes, therefore, a question of the greatest importance, whether considered in a political or philanthropic point of view, to ascertain if this lamentable expenditure of human life might not be considerably diminished by manning our ships of war in the Indian seas with the inhabitants of New Holland.  It is well known that our settlements in this vast island are situated in a climate which forms a mean between the temperature of this country and India.  There is consequently every probability, that the persons born in these colonies would be able to support the extreme heats of India much better than Englishmen.  Be this, however, as it may, there can be no doubt of the advantage which this country would derive from having a valuable nursery for seamen in a situation, from which her navy in the East might at no very remote period be so easily supplied on all occasions of emergency.  This prospect cannot fail to prove an additional motive with the government for the abolition of duties, which, if persevered in, will for ever stifle all commercial enterprize, and debar not only the colonists themselves, but the parent country also from the various important advantages, which I should presume it is now evident that an uncontrolled ability to prosecute these fisheries would infallibly secure to one and the other.

With reference now to the commercial disabilities which have been imposed on this colony:  the first impediment, the removal of which may be said to be of any material importance to its mercantile prosperity, is the clause in the East India Company’s charter*, which provides, “that it shall not be lawful for any vessel, the registered measurement whereof shall be less than three hundred and fifty tons, other than such vessels as may be employed by the East India Company as packets, to clear out from any port in the united kingdom for any place within the limits of the said company’s charter, or be admitted to entry at any port of the united kingdom from any place within those limits.**” When this act was passed, the pernicious bearing of this clause on the colony was most probably overlooked.  It has been found prejudicial in the following respects:—­First, The demand for British goods is not sufficiently extensive to absorb cargoes of such magnitude; so that when any such have arrived, they have generally been attended with a loss to the owners, who will probably soon become too wise to continue such a hazardous commerce.  Those merchants, indeed, who were in the habit of shipping cargoes in smaller vessels for the colonial market, before the passing of this act, have already abandoned, in a great measure, their connexion within the colony, which is at present chiefly dependent for its supplies of British manufactures, on the captains of the vessels employed in the transportation of convicts.  These supplies, therefore, have naturally become unequal and precarious:  sometimes being unnecessarily superabundant and cheap, and at other times being so extremely scarce and dear as to be entirely beyond the reach of the great body of the consumers.  Such great fluctuations are obviously not more repugnant to the well being and comfort of the colonists themselves than to the mercantile interests of this country.