The History of Java, v. 1-2

by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

From the year 1750 no essential alteration appears to have taken place in the trade: the utmost exertions of the Dutch were required to provide the cargoes, and whenever they succeeded, return cargoes were always provided, to the extent of two or three ships in the year. In order to afford a better view of the nature and extent of the restricted trade thus carried on, the accounts of two of these expeditions to Japan are annexed, from which it will appear, that in the voyage of 1804-5 the Company exported from Batavia to the Japan market commodities to the amount of 211,896 rix-dollars in value; that the charges attendant on the shipment and freight amounted to 167,500 rix-dollars (including 2,915 rix-dollars on account of customs), making the whole expenses of the voyage, with the prime cost of the articles, amount to 379,397 rix-dollars. These articles, when sold in Japan, brought 160,378 rix-dollars; but the expenses and disbursements at Japan in one year for the establishment, the loss on the weight of the sugar, and the expense of making the journey to Japan, reduced that sum to 92,426 rix-dollars. The return cargo brought to Batavia the sum of 886,554 rix-dollars, or a profit of 507,147 rix-dollars on the adventure. The cargo and return of 1806, and the expense of the establishment, cost the Company 393,582 rix-dollars, (including 2,846 for customs), and the sales and other receipts produced 569,089, leaving a balance of 175,505 rix-dollars in favour of the adventure.

A more correct judgment may perhaps be formed from the result of the adventures undertaken from Batavia during the provisional authority of the British government. The first of these was intimately connected with a political object, to which the mercantile adventure was made subservient, and both were undertaken without those previous arrangements which would have insured a better assorted and cheaper cargo. The articles were purchased on the spot and at the moment, and the vessels engaged at a very high rate of freight. In the first, in particular, the sugar being of inferior quality, there was a loss in the weight, and it was otherwise less profitable than it would have been, had the assortment been of the same quality which the Dutch company were in the habit of sending. The freight alone amounted to the enormous sum of 82,309 Spanish dollars. From the outward-bound cargoes it was necessary to pay the debts of the former government, amounting to 48,648 Spanish dollars; and this, with other disbursements and necessary provisions, rendering the proceeds of the outward-bound cargo insufficient to furnish the amount requisite for the payment of the copper; the Dutch factor availed himself of the opportunity to supply the deficiency of fourteen hundred pikuls at the rate of twenty-five dollars per 120⅞ pounds, amounting to 25,000 Spanish dollars; differing from the rate paid to the Japanese of 12.3.5 tahils, or ten rix-dollars per pikul, to an extent of fifteen rix-dollars against government. Besides this, the whole of the outward cargo was not sold: several articles of merchandize remained undisposed of at Japan, amounting to 19,688 Spanish dollars, to be accounted for in the ensuing year. All these operated essentially to reduce the profits of a voyage, which depended exclusively on the return cargo.

The results of these voyages, however limited as the profits were, appear fully sufficient to shew the importance of this trade to Batavia, even as it at present stands, considering that it affords a market for so large a quantity of the produce of the country, and that when the government seemed disinclined to send a further adventure on their own account, there were not wanting numerous individuals anxious to obtain a license to undertake the trade, and to run all the risks attached to it.[294]

In the year 1616, the English obtained a grant from the emperor, containing the privileges for a general trade with Japan, in consequence of which a commercial establishment was formed there by the Company.

In obtaining those privileges, one great object with the Company appears to have been to introduce themselves to a connection with the Chinese, and to carry on a general trade between India, China, and Japan; but finding themselves disappointed in their endeavours to form connections with China, and sustaining heavy losses in consequence of their trade with Japan, they determined, in 1623, to abandon their establishment there.

From that time, until the year 1673, no attempt appears to have been made by the English Company to renew their intercourse with Japan. The attempt made at that period entirely failed of success, owing, it was stated, to the king of England having married a daughter of the king of Portugal. About the same time the Company, with a view to the same object, formed an establishment on the Island of Hounan; but after struggling with great difficulties, sustaining heavy losses, and being totally disappointed in their expectations of communicating with Japan, the factory was ordered to be withdrawn in the year 1682.

At a subsequent period (in the year 1699), the Company having established a regular communication with China, their supra-cargoes were instructed to use every endeavour in their power to promote an intercourse with Japan, for the purpose of introducing woollens, &c. into that country, but without any appearance of success.

A select committee of the East-India Company, appointed in 1792 to take into consideration the export trade of Great Britain to the East Indies, after detailing the cargo of a Dutch ship from Japan in the year 1664, which consisted principally of copper, camphor, silk-stuffs, and china-ware, conclude their report by observing, that, in their opinion, the trade with Japan never can become an object of attention for the manufactures and produce of Great Britain; for supposing, they observe, that woollens, lead, and curiosities for a cargo to Japan, could be made to £8,000, what is to be required in payment? About £30,000 or £32,000 value in copper, an article which is also the produce of Great Britain, and which must be disposed of in India, to the prejudice of their own mines. Thus Great Britain would gain, on the one hand, £8,000, whilst the loss, on the other, would be £32,000.

This opinion, however, would appear to have been formed on a very partial view of the subject, and with reference to the limited nature of the trade as it then existed; but it would be as unfair to judge of the value of the Japan trade to the British nation from this narrow view, as it would be to decide upon that subject merely from the result of the adventures to Japan undertaken during the recent provisional government of Batavia, which, besides other disadvantages, were, for political reasons, carried on with a scrupulous regard to the restrictions under which the trade of the Dutch had latterly laboured.

It is objected to a direct communication with Japan, and the consequent exportation of British merchandize by British ships, that, in all probability, it would entirely put a stop to the present exportation of woollens by the Chinese, and that, in proportion as the exports from Great Britain to Japan increased, those from Great Britain to China might be expected to diminish; the Japanese being, at present, almost exclusively supplied with British woollens by means of the Chinese: that, however, the demand for teas would continue the same, and therefore the defalcation in exports to China must be made up in bullion, or by drafts on Bengal.