moditybefore violence or impolicy interfered with it.
The companions of Magellan, in 1521, purchased
cloves at the Moluccas at the following rates by barter
: For ten yards of good scarlet broad cloth they
received a bahar of cloves weighing 59 * lbs. avoirdupois
; and for fifteen yards of middling cloth
the same quantity. If we take the value of the
finest broad cloth at 24s. per yard, * we shall
have the price of the cloves at nearly 12 Spanish
dollars per picul. In 1599, the Dutch, in their
first voyage, obtained their cloves in the Moluccas
at the rate of 1QJLL Spanish dollars, which probably
included some charges and duties, for, in the
following year, regular contracts were entered into
as low as 8^ Spanish dollars. The price paid
for pepper at this time in the markets of the western
part of the Archipelago was 6 Spanish dollars,
From all these data, we may fairly conclude that the
natural price of growing cloves cannot, at all
events, be more than 50 per cent, higher than that
of growing pepper, that that price may be about
6 Spanish dollars, and would, in a free state of the
market, be to the exporter not more than 8 Soa-
nish dollars.
The clove trade is naturally divided into the three
following periods,—when it was conducted by the
natives through many steps, and reached the distant
* Wealth o f Nations, Book I. chap. ii.
nations of Europe by precarious voyages and distant
land journeys,—when it reached them partly through
that channel and partly through the Portuguese by
the new route,—when the nations of Europe competed
for the commodity in the markets of the Moluccas
and of Europe,—and, lastly, when the supremacy
of the Dutch was fully established and excluded
all competition. In the first period, if we imagine
the Arabs, Malays, and Chinese, to have purchased
cloves in the Moluccas at their natural market
rate, or 8 Spanish dollars, we may then trace them
on their way to Europe. At Sunda Calapa, or
the' modern Batavia, one of the emporia at which
the traders of the west obtained cloves, Linschoten
informs us, that the commodity was to be obtained
at from 12^ Spanish dollars to 15^-, or at an
average of nearly 14 Spanish dollars, which would
afford a reasonable profit between the Moluccas
and Java in the rude state of commerce and navigation
which prevailed. When the cloves, purchased
at the emporia of the west, had reached as
far as the Caspian, and thus made two sea voyages
with a tedious, expensive, and dangerous land
journey, they cost no more than 91—^ Spanish
dollars, or were enhanced 551 per cent. * Munn
informs us, that the price of cloves, when they had
got as far as Aleppo, was 1401903q Spanish dollars,
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* Edwards in Hakluyt’s Collection, Vol. II. p. 291-
V0L. III. B b