80 



ERRORS AS TO EARLY SUPPLY 



and that he imagined himself in Mangi the capital of the southern 

 region of Cathay or China! "The Island of Hispaniola," (Hayti) 

 he declares to Pope Alexander VI., in a letter found in the archives 

 of the Duke of Varaguas, — " is Tarshish, Ophir, and Zipangou. 

 In my second voyage, I have discovered fourteen hundred islands, 

 and a shore of three hundred and thirty-three miles, belonging to 

 the continent of Asia. " This West Indian Zipangou produced 

 golden fragments or spangles, weighing eight, ten and even twenty 

 pounds. 1 



Before the discovery of the silver mines of Tasco, on the western 

 slope of the Mexican Cordillera, in the year 1522, America sup- 

 plied only gold to the Old World, and consequently, Isabella of 

 Castile was obliged, already in 1497, to modify greatly, the relative 

 value of the two precious metals used for currency. This was 

 doubtless the origin of the Medina edict — which changes the old 

 legal ratio of 1 : 10.7. Yet Humboldt has shown that, from 1492 

 to 1500, the quantity of gold drawn from the parts of the New 

 World then known, did not amount, annually, to snore than about 

 one thousand pounds avoirdupois ; — and the Pope Alexander VI., 

 who, by his famous Bull, bestowed one half the earth upon the 

 Spanish kings, only received in return, from Ferdinand the Catho- 

 lic, some small fragments of gold from Hayti, to gild a portion 

 of the dome of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore ; — a gift 

 that was suitably acknowledged in a Latin inscription in which the 

 offering is set forth as the first that had been received by the 

 Catholic sovereigns from India. 



Although the income of treasure must have increased somewhat, 

 yet the working of the American mines did not yield three millions 

 of dollars yearly until 1545. The ransom of Atahualpa amounted, 

 according to Gomara, to about four hundred and tw T enty-five thou- 

 sand dollars of our standard, or fifty-two thousand marks of silver, 

 whilst, the pillage of the Temples at Cuzco, if Herrera is to be cre- 

 dited, did not produce more than twenty-five thousand seven hun- 

 dred marks, or a little more than a quarter of a million of our 

 currency. 2 



It has been generally imagined that the wealth of the New World 

 immediately and largely enriched the Spanish kings or their people ; 

 and that the sovereigns, under whose auspices the discovery was 



' See Humboldt's essay on the production of gold and silver in the Journal des 

 Economistes for March, April and May, 1838. 



- See Humboldt's Essay on Precious Metals, ut antea - in note - in the American 

 translation, given in vol. iii., of the Banker's Magazine, p. 509. 



