PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 567 
after the silver mines of Potosi, in Upper Peru (as it was then called), were dis- 
covered in 1545. It was probably this discovery that brought it about that of 
all commodities of such small bulk in proportion to their value as to stand the 
costs of transport to the East this was the one which could be sent out for 
most part with the greatest advantage. And this discovery no doubt also helps 
to explain why that of the sea way to India had so little effect for a very long 
time in lowering the prices of spices in Europe, why prices even rose. At the 
time of the return of Vasco da Gama from the first voyage to India the price of 
pepper at Lisbon is estimated by Danvers' to have been about ls. 5d. per |b., 
and we all know that the immediate occasion of the foundation of the English 
East India Company about a hundred years later was that the Dutch suddenly 
raised the price of pepper against the English from 3s. to 6s. and 8s. per lb. 
But the particular commodity which made up the principal portion of the 
outward trade to India is, after all, a matter of detail, though not unimportant 
detail. The main point on which I want to insist is that, whatever the com- 
modities were, whether carried out or home, the nature of the trade with the 
East was little if at all altered by the discovery of the direct route to India by 
sea, The trade still continued to be one concerned in a moderate number of 
articles of small bulk but high value. It was merely a change of route that the 
Portuguese effected, and for more than a hundred years they remained in sole 
command of this route. After that, however, they were ousted from the greater 
part of this trade, and that the more valuable part, chiefly by the Dutch, and from 
a geographical point of view it is very interesting to note how the Dutch did it. 
They did not trouble themselves much about India proper. They left the Portu- 
guese alone at Goa, and from that port as a base allowed them to pick up as much 
trade as they could at Calicut and Cochin, which, said Albuquerque, ‘ were 
capable of supplying the Portuguese fleets until the Day of Judgment.’ But 
Malacca, on the straits of that name, gave command of the route to the further 
East, whence came in the end even larger quantities of pepper than could be got 
from India, whence came too ginger, cloves, and nutmegs, as well as the pro- 
ducts of China. The importance of this place Albuquerque had accordingly 
recognised, and in 1511, the year after he took Goa, he took it also by the right 
that always belongs to the lion as against the jackal. This place was taken by 
the Dutch (1641), who had previously established themselves on Java and the 
Spice Islands, where they maintained an absolute monopoly. Ceylon, again, was 
(and is) almost the only place from which the true cinnamon was to be obtained, 
so the Dutch took that island also from the Portuguese(1656). As long as the Portu- 
guese were the sole Europeans in the East, Calicut and Cochin not merely furnished 
the Portuguese with Indian wares, but were important entrepéts for the spices, 
perfumes, drugs, and jewels of the Further East as well as of Chinese silks and 
porcelains; but the trade in these commodities could be wholly or largely 
diverted to places in the possession of the Dutch. Even before the capture of 
Malacca and Ceylon a Portuguese viceroy had reported (1638) that the Dutch 
had a monopoly of trade from the Bay of Cochin China to the point of Sunda. 
But this change also was little more than a change of route. The general 
character of the Eastern trade remained the same. The English East India 
Company, whose operations, through the hostility of the Dutch, came to be 
restricted to India proper, there founded a trade that gave much more opportunity 
for expansion under modern conditions than that of the Dutch, but for a long 
time it retained the same character. All the commodities enumerated by 
Colquhoun as brought back by the voyages of 1620-3 in exchange for the bullion 
and merchandise sent out were pepper, cloves, mace, nutmegs, Chinese and 
Persian raw silk, besides calicoes, the sole manufactured article, and one of 
course that had relatively a much higher value than now, when the direction of 
the trade in that commodity is reversed. 
A similar character for a long time belonged to the trans-Atlantic trade, even 
though the costs of transport in that case were less, and favoured the develop- 
ment of a trade in somewhat bulkier commodities, Furs from the Far North, 
‘ As above, vol, i. p. 64. 
