FOOTNOTES:
[280] It appears, that subsequent to this year, no general list was kept, a list only of the number of children christened in the reformed churches being found among the registers.
[281] Since this year no specific list to be found.
[282] Mr. Robertson's observation and experience led him to give it a greater latitude, from eight or nine in the morning till twelve, and from three to six in the afternoon.
[283] Five days after our arrival in India.
APPENDIX B.
JAPAN TRADE.
The empire of Japan has, for a long period, adopted and carried with effect all the exclusive maxims of Chinese policy, with a degree of rigour unknown even in China itself. Previously to the expulsion of the Portuguese and the extirpation of Christianity in the latter part of the seventeenth century, the Japanese trade was reckoned by far the most advantageous which could be pursued in the East, and very much superior to either the Indian or Chinese trade. After the expulsion of the Portuguese, a very extensive trade was for some permitted to be carried on by the Dutch, on account of the benefits which the Japanese imagined themselves to have received from that nation during the Portuguese war, and especially the detection of a formidable conspiracy of some of the Japanese princes to dethrone the emperor, the correspondence relative to which was intercepted at sea. It was for these services that the Dutch originally procured the imperial edict, by which they were permitted to trade to Japan, to the exclusion of all other European nations. This public act of their ancestors, the Japanese have repeatedly declared that they will not cancel; but they have done every thing but formally cancel it, for a more limited and less free trade never was carried on by one rich nation with another.[284] For more than half a century, the Dutch trade has been limited to two yearly ships from Batavia, the cargoes of both of which scarcely ever exceeded the value of 300,000 dollars, and their only profitable returns are Japan copper, and a small quantity of camphor. To shew themselves impartial in their restrictions, the Japanese have limited the traffic of the Chinese, the only eastern nation whom they suffer to trade with them at all, in a similar manner to that of the Dutch, and they suffer no more than ten Chinese junks to visit Nangasaki in the year. The trade of those two favoured nations is also limited to the port of Nangasaki.
In pursuance of their exclusive maxims, and conformably to the terms of their agreement with the Dutch, the Japanese have, on every occasion, followed an uniform line of conduct, and rejected, in the most peremptory manner, the various overtures of different nations of Europe, refusing equally to have any intercourse, negociation or commerce, with any of them. It must also be admitted, that the whole foreign trade of Japan, compared with the riches of the country, is absolutely trifling; nor is there any rich or powerful body of them, like the Hong merchants of China, at all interested in its continuance. The yearly presents, whether offered to the governor of Nangasaki or the emperor, are of no great value, and rigidly limited by law and usage; and as the government of Japan is much stronger and more vigilant than that of China, no such abuses can be ventured on at Nangasaki as those which exist at Canton.
The commercial intercourse of the Dutch at Japan was established by an imperial edict in their favour from the emperor Gonging Soma, in the year 1611.