17 Essays 153
now sensible that nothing is to be got by contesting
with or oppressing us.
Two circumstances have diverted me lately. One
was that, being at the court of exchequer on some
business of my own, I there met with one of the
commissioners of the stamp office, who told me he
attended with a memorial from that board, to be allowed
 in their accounts the difference between their
expense in endeavouring to establish those offices in
America, and the amount of what they received,
which from Canada and the West India Islands was
but about fifteen hundred pounds, while the expense,
if I remember right, was above twelve thousand pounds,
being for stamps and stamping, with paper and parchment
 returned upon their hands, freight, &c. The
other is the present difficulties of the India Company,
and of government on their account. The Company
have accepted bills, which they find themselves unable
 to pay, though they have the value of two millions
 in tea and other India goods in their stores,
perishing under a want of demand; their credit thus
suffering, and their stock falling one hundred and
twenty per cent., whereby the government will lose
the four hundred thousand pounds per annum, it having
 been stipulated that it should no longer be paid, if
the dividend fell to that mark. And although it is
known that the American market is lost by continuing
 the duty on tea, and that we are supplied by
the Dutch, who doubtless take the opportunity of
smuggling other India goods among us with the tea,
so that for the five years past we might probably have
otherwise taken off the greatest part of what the

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