5i6 TRADE AND COMMERCE. 



countryman of Vasco de Gama, may be called the third promi- 

 nent navigator of this period. He devoted himself, after the con- 

 quest of Malacca, out of spite towards his king, to the service of 

 Charles V. (Charles I.), in order to furnish the Spaniards with the 

 highly prized cloves of the Moluccas, while avoiding the Portuguese 

 route. He accomplished in this effort, as is well known, the first 

 circumnavigation of the globe, a few years after the Portuguese 

 had sailed round tropical Asia, and obtained in Macao a new basis 

 of operations for their trade. 



Japan was finally discovered by the Portuguese, and the ship- 

 wreck which brought Mendez Pinto and his companions on its 

 southern shore in 1542 A.D. was the beginning of a notable period 

 for Japan, in which the spread of Christianity during the second 

 half of the sixteenth century kept equal pace with an extremely 

 profitable trade, with Nagasaki as its chief point. The trade of 

 Japan with China also flourished in this period ; for according to 

 Thunberg some 200 Chinese ships arrived every year up to 1684, 

 each with an average manning of fifty persons. They brought 

 silk, silk handkerchiefs, sugar, turpentine, incense, agates, Baros 

 camphor, ginseng and several other medicinal wares, besides 

 medical books, taking away copper in bars, lacquer work, and 

 other productions of Japan. 



Portuguese trade between Goa, Malacca, Macao, and Nagasaki 

 (or Hirado) was regulated by the monsoons and the king of Por- 

 tugal. Linschoten states that the latter allowed but one ship to 

 sail each year from Macao to Japan. This was a very large, good 

 ship of 1,600 tons, the command of which for three years was given in 

 reward for services rendered, as the captain made between 1 50,000 

 and 200,000 ducats on each voyage to Japan. Pie brought various 

 wares from Macao, especially silks. The return trade was of silver 

 and gold, which paid an immense profit, of 100 per cent, according 

 to Kaempfer. Meijlan states that at the period when this Portu- 

 guese trade was at its highest point, the average annual value of 

 this exportation of precious metals from Japan amounted to from 

 eight to nine millions of Dutch gulden (^^765,000). Thunberg, in- 

 deed, estimates it at the enormous quantity of 300 tons of gold, 

 and remarks further, that even after the Portuguese had made them- 

 selves objects of hatred by their conduct in Nagasaki and else- 

 where, and their trade had fallen into complete decadence, they 

 still exported considerable quantities of silver — thus in 1636 A.D. 

 2,360 chests or 2,350,000 Japanese taels at 2s. 9^., in 1637 A.D. 

 2,142,365 taels, and in 1638 A.D. 1,259,023 taels.^ 



With this, as is well known, the trade of the Portuguese in Japan 

 came to an end ; for their complete exclusion soon followed (1639), 

 and when in 1640 they had again separated from Spain and attained 

 their former independence, they saw themselves robbed of their 

 profitable commerce and rich possessions in Asia, down to a few 



1 A Japanese tael is reckoned at 33 stiver=r65 Dutch florins=2j-. ^\d. 



