“In the last century, the Europeans brought from China very little [raw] silk; ours was sufficiently good for the black or colored gauzes, and for the catgut gauzes [marlis] which then were worn. The taste which has prevailed during the last forty years (and more generally during the last twenty-five) for white gauzes and for blondes has gradually increased the consumption of this Oriental product; the amount of this rose in modern times to eighty thousand pounds a year, of which France always used nearly three-fourths; and this importation has so greatly increased that in 1766 the English alone took a hundred and four thousand-weight of it. As the gauzes and blondes could not consume that amount, the manufacturers used part of it in making watered silks [moires] and hose.... Besides this silk of unique whiteness—which is chiefly produced in the province of Tche-Kiang, and which we know in Europe under the name of Nankin silk, from the place, where it is especially made—China produces ordinary silks, which we call Canton silks. As these are suitable for only the wefts of some silk fabrics, and are as expensive as those of Europe which serve for the same uses, very little of them is imported; and what the English and Dutch carry away of this Canton silk does not exceed five or six thousand-weight.” (Raynal, Établissemens et commerce des Européens, i, pp. 660–662.)
“The Chinese are no less skilful in working up their silks than in producing them; but this praise ought not to extend to those of their stuffs in which gold and silver are woven. Their manufacturers have never known how to draw these metals into thread, and their ingenuity is always confined to rolling their silks in gilded papers, or in pasting [appliquer] the stuffs to those same papers; both methods are equally faulty.” (Raynal, Étab. et com. des Européens, i, p. 662.) [↑]
[5] At the end of the atlas volume of Raynal’s Histoire ... des établissemens et du commerce des Européens (ed. of 1780, Geneva) are various supplementary sheets, containing tabulated summaries of the kinds and amounts of trade carried on by the leading European nations with their colonial possessions, chiefly those of America; from some of these we abstract items of interest which have some relation to the scope of our work. The first of these shows the amount and value of the commerce of the Company of Holland in the East Indies from 1720 to 1729 inclusive. In these ten years they sent out an average of 37 or 38 ships each year, manned by about 7,000 men; of these, 30 returned to Europe. The merchandise sold by the company amounted, in round numbers, to an average of 18,859,000 florins yearly, and the dividends distributed among the partners to 23⅗ per cent (ranging, in different years, from 12½ to 40 per cent); the amount of money sent to the Cape of Good Hope and to the Asian Islands averaged 6,560,000 florins. The average sales of spices yearly were as follows: Pepper, 4,500,000 pounds, at 11 sols, 2,475,000 florins; cinnamon, 400,000 pounds, at 5¾ florins, 2,300,000 florins; cloves, 400,000 pounds, at 4¼ florins, 1,700,000 florins; nutmegs, 250,000 pounds, at 3¾ florins, 937,500 florins; mace, 90,000 pounds, at 6½ florins, 585,000 florins—a total of 7,997,500 florins. The original capital of the Dutch East India Company was 6,459,840 florins; about 57 per cent of this was held in Amsterdam, and about 21 per cent in the province of Zeeland. The number of shares was 2,153, each of 3,000 florins. During the period 1605 to 1777, the dividends annually distributed ranged usually from 12½ to 40 per cent; in the following years they exceeded the latter rate—being in 1606, 75 per cent; in 1610, 50; in 1612, 57½; in 1615, 42½; in 1616, 62½; in 1671, 45 and 15. During 1771–77, they were uniformly 12½ per cent. These were paid usually in money; sometimes, in the earlier years, in cloves; and, in 1673, 1679, and 1697, in bonds or in contracts. In the period 1723–74, the prices of shares ranged from 788 per cent (in 1733) to 314 (in 1771).
Another table shows similar figures for the years 1679 to 1774—apparently for the new organization of the company in 1674. The capital is stated at 8,071,135 florins; there were 1,345 shares, of 6,000 florins each. The dividends, during the above period, ranged from 10 per cent to nothing, the yearly average being 1–21/32 per cent; neither these figures nor the prices of shares agree with those of the first table, but the reason for the discrepancy is not obvious. [↑]
[6] In 1731 and 1733 Sevilla and Cadiz “both imagined (and it is rather surprising that this had not been sooner evident) that it would be an advantage to Spain to take part directly in the commerce of Asia, and that the possessions which it had in that part of the world would be the center of the operations which it would conduct there. In vain was the objection made against them that, as India furnished silk and cotton fabrics that were superior to those of Europe in their finish, in their colors, and (above all) in their cheapness, the national manufacturers could not support competition with those goods, and would infallibly be ruined. This objection, which might have some weight among certain peoples, seemed to them utterly frivolous, in the position in which their country stood. As a fact, the Spaniards use for both their clothing and their furniture foreign stuffs and cloths; and these continual needs necessarily increase the industry, the wealth, the population, and the strength of their neighbors—who misuse these advantages, in order to keep in dependence the very nation which obtains these for them. Would not Spain behave with more wisdom and dignity if she would adopt the manufactures of the Indias? Resides the economy and satisfaction which she would find therein, she would succeed in diminishing a preponderance [of other nations] of which she will be, sooner or later, the victim.” (Raynal, Établissemens et commerce des Européens, i, p. 606.) [↑]
[7] “The settlements, commerce, and conquests of the English in the East Indies” are related by Raynal in his Établissemens et commerce des Europeens, i, pp. 261–398. The English East India Company was founded in 1600, and made a promising beginning in the Oriental trade; but the opposition of the Dutch and Portuguese, already intrenched therein, was so great and persistent that the English company—which was compelled to encounter also, in turn, competition from other English traders, hindrances arising from the duplicity and avarice of Charles II of England, losses arising from the civil war in that country, hostilities (originating from the greed and treachery of one of the company’s own directors) with the Mogul emperor Aurungzebe, and the capture of many English trading vessels by French privateers—was several times almost ruined, and all English commercial prestige in the East was greatly injured. Finally, in 1702, the two rival East India companies in England united their funds and enterprises, and thereafter the affairs of the new organization prospered, in the main; and in 1763 the French were driven out of Asia, leaving the English masters of both political and commercial interests in India. In 1774 the latter drove out the Mahrattas from Salsette Island, and founded Bombay, which, although at first an insalubrious locality, on account of its fine harbor soon became the emporium of English commerce and center of that nation’s power. [↑]
[8] Formerly the fardo was 1⅓ varas long, ¾ vara high, and ¾ vara less one pulgada (nearly one English inch) wide; but for a long time previous to 1726 the bale of this size had not been used, because it became necessary to break it open at Acapulco, in order to transfer the goods from the ship to the land, and it was replaced by the half-bale and half-chest, in order not to break open the package before selling it or transporting it across the country. These smaller packages were then called “bales” and “chests” (fardos and caxones); their dimensions are given in the decree of 1726 (fol. 118 verso of Extracto, or VOL. XLIV, ante, p. 311). This information appears in the informatory report furnished by Gabriel Guerrero de Ardila, accountant of the bureau of accounts in Mexico, to the viceroy, on March 6, 1730. (Extracto historial, fol. 193 verso, 194.) [↑]
[9] Perhaps alluding to the Ribera (i.e., “shore”) or navy-yard of Cavite—that is, the standard of measure used in shipbuilding and other industries there. [↑]
[10] “With this, it may be said, finally came to an end the celebrated controversies which so persistently and for so long a time were waged by the merchants of Cadiz against the commerce of Filipinas, the standard of the [permission of] 500,000 dollars [duros] remaining permanent until the emancipation of the Americas [from Spanish rule] put an end to that traffic. It had the same effect on all the restrictions which for the space of almost three centuries had weighed down the Filipino commerce—for even in the year 1810 (as Comyn tells us in his Estado de las islas Filipinas, speaking of the Acapulco galleon) only one ship, commanded by an officer of the navy, could make these expeditions, once a year; and in order to share in that commerce a merchant must have a vote in the consulate, which presupposed property to the amount of 8,000 dollars and several years of residence in the country. He was [also] obliged to contribute, in the same proportion as the other shippers, to the allowance of 15,000 or 20,000 dollars made to the commandant of the galleon, besides paying 25 to 40 per cent for freight charges, according to circumstances. [Meanwhile,] the shippers were not able to make any examination of the condition of the ships in which they risked a great part of their fortunes; and there were many other impediments, which now we would suppose could not possibly have ever existed, if we were not so habituated to stupid proceedings of this sort.” (Azcarraga y Palmero, Libertad de comercio, pp. 64, 65.)
When the galleon of Acapulco ceased its voyages—the last one sailed from Manila in 1811, and returned from Acapulco in 1815—the commerce fell into the hands of individuals, to whom in 1820 permission was granted to export merchandise from Filipinas to the value of 750,000 pesos a year; and their voyages were extended from Acapulco to San Blas, Guayaquil, and Callao. (Montero y Vidal, Hist. de Filipinas, i, p. 462, note.)