ABSTRACT
In June 1819 the editor of the Bombay Gazette capped a comment that had appeared in a Calcutta paper on the apparent absurdities of free trade – in this case ‘the importing of coal from England and bricks from China.’ but ‘what will the worthy editor say when we tell him we have had an importation of salt from the Mother country – paid a considerable freight and that many thousands of pounds of nutmegs and mace have come to us direct from England?’
