WHETHER regarded as a necessary of life, or as forming an element in the amelioration of the intercourse of nations, the article of Tea takes the first rank in the history of Commerce.
The production of one country, its use has spread over almost every other civilized one, until its name has become a synonyme of the ancient empire where it grows, and suggests to the mind, not so much the healthful properties of a simple shrub, as the history of the intercourse with China, and of China itself.
No other production of the soil has, in an equal degree, stimulated the intercourse of the most distant portions of the globe; nor has any other beverage, with equally unalloyed benefit, so commended itself to the palates of the people of the more civilized nations, or become so much a source of comfort, and a means of temperance, healthfulness, and cheerfulness, whilst it may be doubted if any other is equally a restorative and stimulative of the intellectual faculties of man.
The incentive to the industry of many millions in China, it is the direct source of an immense revenue to the British exchequer,* and of much prosperity to the manufacturing and commercial interests of the British empire, and other nations; and whilst its agreeable and healthful properties have diffused comfort and cheerfulness, and promoted temperance amongst the households of the western nations, these, reciprocally, have contributed to the moral influences of this interchange of commerce upon the millions of the populous and farthest East.
But, in tracing the progress of its use, and estimating the mutual benefits that it has conferred, the satisfaction that is derived therefrom is not wholly unalloyed-for, whilst it forms on one side the healthful element of a reciprocal
* The duty upon tea imported into Great Britain, has reached the almost incredible sum of £5,400,000 sterling, or about $25,000,000 per annum.