Abstract
So Great a Proffit is an ambitious book that brings together a tremendous amount of meticulously researched economic data to demonstrate the global scope of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century trade in the East Indies and its impact on American and British business methods. Essentially, James Fichter argues that as competition for the East India trade heightened at the turn of the nineteenth century, both America and Great Britain had to readjust their commercial policies and business models to remain competitive. Although less experienced and initially ill-financed, American merchants remained flexible tochanging business conditions on the ground thanks to the presence of individual supercargo agents