Sinews of trade and empire: the supply of commodity exports to the East India Company during the late eighteenth century
ome contemporaries described the late eighteenth-century East India Company as a machine or engine driving forward the expansion of the British empire, state, and system of public finance. But although the hydra-like corporation had been elevated far above the status of a straightforward trading company, few suggested that the Company also powered the growth of the wider metropolitan economy to any great degree, and certainly no one believed that the eastern empire offered much support for the development of British industry. However, this is seemingly at odds with evidence based upon customs figures which suggests that the export trade to 'East India' made considerable progress over the course of the eighteenth century, notably during the 1760s, and again during the late 1780s and early 1790s. In aggregate terms, the annual average official value of the home produce and manufactures