FOREIGN TRADE UP TO OPENING OF COUNTRY. 527 



were exported, on which a profit of 1,000,000 fl. was realised. In 

 1 67 1, the exportation of silver was prohibited, but that did not 

 much concern the Dutch, as it brought them little gain, and the 

 exportation of copper seemed all the more considerable. In fact 

 it rose to 30,000 Pikul, a height that it has never reached again. 

 In 1696, it was limited to 25,000 Pikul ; but, as Meijlan states, 

 they managed to get 6-7,000 Pikul more by bribery. The 

 greatest part of this copper was still brought to India, as in the 

 time of the Portuguese. 



The trade suffered further noteworthy restrictions from the year 

 1700, in which it was decreed that only four or five Dutch 

 ships should come to Nagasaki annua-lly. In 17 14, the exporta- 

 tion of copper was reduced to 1,500 Pikul, and in 1717 the entire 

 Dutch trade was limited to two ships. In 172 1 the Japanese fixed 

 the exportation of copper at 10,000 Pikul, but reduced it again, 

 in 1743, to 5-6,000 Pikul. In this year it was also decreed that 

 for the future only one ship should come to Nagasaki annually, 

 though in 1759 the law was changed, and three ships annually 

 were allowed. 



According to a statement of the Opperhoofd of the year 1760, 

 the total yield of the country in copper amounted to 36-40,000 

 Pikul (44,000 to 48,000 cwt.), of which the Netherlanders ex- 

 ported 11,000 Pikul, the Japanese governors and officials in 

 Nagasaki received 900 Pikul, the Chinese 15,000 Pikul, and 

 10,000 to 13,000 covered the domestic demand. This increase of 

 exportation to 11,000 Pikul, however, did not take place till 1820, 

 after a period of ten years, during which only an annual expor- 

 tation of 8,000 Pikul had been allowed. It would lead us too far to 

 mention here all the other vicissitudes and restrictions which the 

 Dutch trade suffered in the course of that long period, or to mention 

 the figures which represent its total value. More interesting, per- 

 haps, will be, in conclusion, a brief glance at the various wares 

 with which it was concerned. 



The most notable import and export articles of Japan during 

 the great commercial movement in the first decades of the 17th 

 century have been already mentioned. Thunberg's lists refer to a 

 much later period, namely the last decades of the i8th century.^ 

 According to these, the Dutch imported to Nagasaki, raw silk, 

 silken and half-silken fabrics, cottons and wools, cordovan, raw 

 sugar, and spices, such as ginger, pepper, saffron, cloves, nutmegs, 

 drugs, especially turpentine, Baros camphor, musk, benzoin-gum, 

 storax, myrrh, catechu, China-root,^ costus Arabicus,^ licorice, 



^ " Resa," etc., vol. iii. pp. 47, 48, and vol. iv. p. 106. 



2 China-root (Smilax China, L.), the oriental small-pox, or sweat-root, viz., 

 the rhizoma of a scrambling imder-shrub which also grows wild in Japan. It 

 was brought from India, and is also called Chinese Sarsaparilla. 



^ This is the root of a composite from India, whose botanical name is 

 Aplo taxis auriculata^ D.C. 



