Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/309

CHAPTER IV. INTERCOLONIAL COMMERCE. Colonial intercourse heliveen Indian Inlands and China.— ^ Betiveen Indian Islands and Japan. — Bekveen Indian Islands and West Coast of America. — Between Indian Islands and Western Nations of Asia. In this short chapter I shall furnish a very rapid sketch of the colonial intercourse with China, — of the Japan trade, which is purely a colonial one,— of the intercourse between the Indian Islands and the west coast of America, the celebrated galleon trade, a traffic of the same character, — and of that part of the country trade, as it is called, which has been commonly designated the Eastern or Malay trade. In the first period of the commerce of the monopoly companies with India, they conducted the trade from port to port as well as the direct trade. Their ships very generally touched, in the first place, at Surat, or some other port of Western In- dia, where they laid in investments of cotton goods, suited to the markets of the Archipelago. This, indeed, constituted the most valuable branch of