368 



iVyJ rURE 



[August 8, 1907 



purchasers of spices who come first into the mind of 

 Priuli are Hungarians and Germans. It was inevitable 

 that they should be among the leading customers of 

 Venice. The Hungarians were supplied from the 

 Dalmatian ports which belonged to Venice. The Germans 

 came by way of the Rhine and the Elbe, and then across 

 the Alps, to get supplies for central, north-western, and 

 northern Europe. But it was neither Hungarians nor 

 Germans who came in greatest numbers to Lisbon to buy 

 the spices which Portuguese ships brought from the East. 

 In any case Lisbon had no advantages like those of Venice 

 for supplying by land a large and rich population 

 immediately behind it. The valley of the Tagus was small 

 and poor, and had not the capacity for expansion in 

 wealth and population which the Lombard plains had when 

 the commerce of Venice began to grow. The bulk of the 

 spices brought to Lisbon had therefore to reach their final 

 markets by routes that did not pass through Lisbon into 

 the interior. To supply the most important of those 

 markets it was the Dutch, the people who held " the 

 keys of trade " for the important valleys of the Rhine, 

 Meuse, and Scheldt, who came to Lisbon in greatest 

 numbers to buy spices of the Portuguese. And here it 

 has to be added that, in spite of the discovery of the sea 

 way to India, the Venetians continued to retain great 

 advantages in the spice trade with Hungary and parts of 

 Germany, as well as, of course, the northern plains of 

 Italy. Things did not remain always as bad as recorded 

 in the years 1504 and 1506. The Portuguese, while main- 

 taining successfully for a hundred years the monopoly of 

 the trade in spices at the place of origin in the East, 

 found their advantage in dividing the trade with Europe 

 between the sea way and the Persian Gulf route, of 

 which latter route they held the key since the final capture 

 of Ormuz in 1515. The trade bv way of the Tigris 

 through Baghdad (the so-called Babylon of those days) 

 and the Euphrates to the old Phoenician seaboard v^as 

 again revived, and was maintained as long as Portugal 

 hold command of the trade. It was by this route that 

 the first English commercial expedition to India, that of 

 Newberie, Leedcs, Story, and Fitch, went out in 1583, and 

 by which Ralph Fitch, the sole survivor of that expedi- 

 tion, returned in 1591. By this route Venice got back 

 some of her spice trade ; not perhaps with the same profit 

 to herself as formerly, but still a trade of no slight 

 importance not only to Venice, but also to Augsburg, 

 Nuremberg, and some of the other cities of South 

 Germany. 



But beyond doubt the bulk of the trade was now carried 

 on by the sea route, and we are therebv enabled to get 

 a better idea both of the amount and the nature of the 

 trade. On both points we get information from the 

 " Narrative " of the above-named Ralph Fitch, who tells 

 us that " the Fleete which commcth every veere from 

 Portugal, which be foure, five, or sixe great shippcs, 

 commeth first hither [to Goa]. And thev come for the 

 most part in September, and remaine there fortie or fiftie 

 dayes ; and then go to Cochin, where they lade their 

 Pepper for Portugall.'" Now in 1583 a ship of 500 tons 

 would certainly be called a great ship. In 1572 the largest 

 vessel sailing from the porf of London was' of 240 tons,= 

 and the largest of the first fleet of the East India Com- 

 pany was one of 600 tons. I could give more definite 

 information as to the capacity of these 'fleets at that time 

 if I knew exactly what a salma was, for in a report on 

 Portuguese trade sent to the Grand Duke Ferdinand I. 

 of Tuscany (1587-1608) we are told that the fleet con- 

 sisted of four or five carracks of the capacitv of 5000 or 

 (iooo salme.' But a salma is a term for which one some- 

 times gets a very indefinite meaning, at other times 

 definite but very diverse meanings, sometimes a weight 

 of 25 lb., which is obviously too little, and again a 

 weight of IOOO lb., which is probablv too much. The 

 large dictionary of Tommaseo gives this latter weight 

 with an example stating the capacity of a ship ; but if 

 'hat were the meaning then the carracks would be of a 

 burden of from 2250 to 2700 tons, a much heavier tonnage 



1 Horton Ryley, " Ralph Fitch," p. 61. 

 - //)/(/.. p. 17. 



■■> Angelo de Oub-rnati^. " Memoria IntA ,,._ 



Indie Oriental! d.-il secolo XIII a tutto il XVI," p. 149.' 



NO. 197 I, VOL. 76] 



'iaggiatori Itali; 



than is elsewhere indicated, so far as I am aware, for 

 vessels of the period. Probably 3000 tons would be the 

 outside limit of the aggregate cargoes annually brought, 

 to Portugal, for in any case much room in the ships was 

 required for the large crews of those days with their 

 armaments, for then the idea of carrying on commerce byj 

 sea without being in a position to defend your ship was 

 out of the question. 



Of the commodities sent home from India, Fitch ^ 

 mentions in this place only pepper, and the correspondence 

 of Albuquerque with the King of Portugal soon after the 

 discovery of the sea way to India clearly reveals how all- 

 important the pepper trade was ; but it may be worth 

 while to give the complete list of the commodities which 

 Ralph Fitch enumerates at the end of his " Narrative " 

 as coming from India and the country further eastward. 

 The list is not a long one. It comprises pepper, ginger, 

 cloves, nutmegs and maces, camphora (" a precious thing 

 among the Indians . . . solde dearer then golde "), 

 lignum aloes, long pepper, muske, amber, rubies, 

 saphires, and spinels, diamants, pearles, spodium, and 

 many other kindcs of drugs from Cambaia. — all of them, 

 it will be observed, having the character of being of high 

 value in proportion to their bulk, so that a very great 

 value of such goods might be carried in ships of small 

 capacity. 



Fitch does not tell us what was sent in return, but 

 information as to that is to be had from other sources 

 and presents one or two points of interest. In 1513 

 Albuquerque, after a long course of fighting, concluded a 

 peace with the Zamorin of Calicut, in which it was agreed, 

 among other things, that the Zamorin should supply the 

 Portuguese with all the " spices and drugs " his land pro- 

 duced, and that " coral, silk stuffs, quicksilver, vermilion, 

 copper, lead, salTron, alum, and all other merchandise 

 from Portugal " should be sold at Calicut as heretofore.' 

 Coral comes first in this enumeration. To us at the 

 present day this does not seem a very important article of 

 cominerce, but it was otherwise then. One Mafio di 

 Priuli, writing from India in 1537 to the Magnifico M. 

 Constantino di Priuli, says, " At a great fair which is 

 called that of Tremel I have seen buttons of coral sold 

 for their w-eight in silver."^ That is the point of view 

 of a European in India, but a native of the East Indies 

 in Europe at the same date would no doubt have spoken 

 with astonishment of the amount of silver that could be 

 got in Europe for a few grains of pepper. Our letter- 

 wr'ter says in his cheerful, hopeful, gossiping way, " The 

 gains of these parts are other than those of Damascus. 

 Aleppo, and .Alexandria : for if one does not gain cent, 

 per cent, from Portugal here, and from here back again, 

 one thinks that one gains nothing. .And three or four 

 years would be quite enough."' But, while he indicates 

 how these immense gains are made, he also indicates 

 clearly enough how they continue to be made — that is, 

 how they are so counterbalanced by losses that if these 

 great gains were not made on occasion commerce would 

 cease. It was all very well to exchange your coral for 

 spices, but the great matter was to get your coral out 

 and your spices home in safety. The writer of this letter 

 had entrusted to a friend who had left on a ship for 

 Ormuz jewels of the value of 4000 Venetian ducats, but 

 the jewels were lost. He believed that his friend was 

 murdered. " But such losses," he adds, " will occur." 

 .Another time he lost more than 6000 ducats gold in 

 Portuguese vessels going to Ormuz, and on another 

 occasion he suffered great loss when Pegu was sacked by 

 the King of Burma. 



These notes may serve to illustrate the conditions of 

 trade in the glorious days for Portugal when fine fortunes 

 were heaped up in Lisbon through trade, but the great 

 bulk of humanity got very little at least directly through 

 that trade ; but we have not exhausted the interest con- 

 nected with the nature of the outgoing commodities for 

 India, and to that it will be well to return. Another of 

 the stipulations of the treaty of 15 13 above referred to 

 was that while duties were to be paid in coin " the 

 Portuguese were to pay for all the pepper and other 



1 Danver':, " The Portiiguese in India." vol. i. , p. 283. 



- P. ^4 of the letter referred to as published at Venice in 1824. 



■■< IHd., p. =9. 



