Not to talk about Europe's precedents too. For example, Phoenicians and Greek commerce in the Mediterranean sea, or Celtic with Tartessos trade or Persian markets on its Empire.

You can not talk about theories(Adam Smith) about ideal trade without considering geopolitical power. It was a free market within the British Empire for the British to benefit, but the British gave themselves the monopoly of trade with whatever they could monopolize by force, like India's trade.

There was not freedom of trade in India under British domination, remember the Salt March of Gandhi.