CHAP. XXIV. 



TRADE WITH ASIA. 195 



scarcely any of their own productions, but chiefly 

 that silver which they obtained from Spanish 

 America and the West Indies in return for flour 

 and other articles the produce of their soil. 



This vast demand for the east has been the sub- 

 ject of calculation with several writers. M. For- 

 bonnais supposes that between 1492 and 17^4 one- 

 half of the gold and silver which America had sup- 

 plied to Europe had been absorbed by the Levant, 

 the India, and the China trade. M. Gerboux, in his 

 work on pecuniary legislation, has not merely ad- 

 vocated the same opinion, but has computed the pro- 

 portion of wealth conveyed to the east at a somewhat 

 higher rate. Baron Humboldt, from whose work 

 on Mexico these views of the two French writers 

 are extracted, has taken pains to estimate the pro- 

 portion of the exports to Asia of the precious 

 metals which Europe had drawn from America. 

 His estimation is made upon an examination of 

 the exports at the time he composed his work, 

 between the years 1803 and 1806, when the 

 amount of gold and silver furnished by America 

 had nearly reached its highest point, when the de- 

 mand for goods from India had not lessened, and 

 when the exports to India of British productions 

 were far less than at present. His calculation is 

 therefore neither accommodated to the earlier 

 years of the period we are considering, nor is it 

 adapted to measure the proportions which within 

 the few last years have existed. He states the 



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