Bengal raw silk is bought at very low prices there, and is very useful in carrying on the manufactures of this kingdom.
China silk is of excellent staple, and comes at little above one-third of the price of Italian Piedmont silk.
The China silk is purchased at Canton, but their fine silk is made in the provinces of Nankin and Chekiam, where their fine manufactures are carried on, and where prodigious quantities of raw silk are made, and the best in all China.
The Royal African Company was incorporated 14 Charles II., and empowered to trade from Sallee, in South Barbary, to the Cape of Good Hope, being all the western coast of Africa. It carries no money out, and not only supplies the English plantations with servants, but brings in a great deal of bullion for those that are sold to the Spanish West Indies, besides gold dust and other commodities, as red wood, elephants’ teeth, Guinea grain, &c., some of which are re-exported. The supplying the plantations with negroes is of that extraordinary advantage, that the planting sugar and tobacco and carrying on trade there could not be supported without them; which plantations are the great causes of the increase of the riches of the kingdom.
The Canary Company was incorporated in the reign of King Charles II., anno 1664, being empowered to trade to the Seven Islands, anciently called the Fortunate, and now the Canary Islands.
They have a governor, deputy-governor, and thirteen assistants or directors, chosen annually in March. This company exports baize, kerseys, serges, Norwich stuffs, and other woollen manufactures; stockings, hats, fustians, haberdashery wares, tin, and hardware; as also herrings, pilchards, salted flesh, and grain; linens, pipe-staves, hoops, &c. Importing in return Canary wines, logwood, hides, indigo, cochineal, and other commodities, the produce of America and the West Indies.
There is another company I had almost overlooked, called the Hudson’s Bay Company; and though these merchants make but little noise, I find it is a very advantageous trade. They by charter trade, exclusively of all other his Britannic Majesty’s subjects, to the north-west; which was granted, as I have been told, on account that they should attempt a passage by those seas to China, &c., though nothing appears now to be less their regard; nay; if all be true, they are the very people that discourage and impede all attempts made by others for the opening that passage to the South Seas. They export some woollen goods and haberdashery wares, knives, hatchets, arms, and other hardware; and in return bring back chiefly beaver-skins, and other skins and furs.