The result of these three tables as we have already observed*, on comparing the actual produce of the mines of Guanaxuato in Mexico, with the produce of the mountain of Potosi, is, that during the space of 233 years, from 1556 to 1789, there has been extracted from the mines of Potosi, in silver declared at the Royal Treasury, the amount of 788 millions of piastres. If these piastres were all Mexican piastres, at 8 reals of Plata Mexicanat, the produce of these 233 years would amount to 92,736,294 marcst. But we shall shortly see that the mass of silver on which duty has been paid is still greater. The books of accounts preserved in the archives of the provincial treasury of Potosi, do not go farther back than the year 1556. It remains therefore to examine what was the quantity of silver supplied by the mines of Potosi before that period. This examination is the more important, as it is very reasonably believed that the first years which fol * See p. 171. † We must take care not to confound three species of reals de plata; viz. the real de plata antigua of 64 maravedis de vellon; the real de plata nueva or provincial of 68 maravedis; and the real de plata Mexicana, of 85 maravedis. We constantly make use of the latter in this work (Damoreau Traité des Banques, 1727, p. 115. Encyclop. Methodique, Commerce, T. iii. p. 211.) ‡ 60,851,231 lb. troy. lowed the discovery of the veins, were the most productive in riches. Ulloa* quotes a book published in 1634, by Don Sebastiani Sandoval y Guzman, under the title of Pretensiones del Potosi, in which the author specifies the fifth paid between 1545 and 1633. I endeavoured in vain to procure this work during my stay in Peru; and not knowing the partial data which it contains, I can only examine the results stated by the Spanish astronomer. This examination becomes the more necessary, as the assertions of Ulloa have been repeated by Raynal†, and by all the other writers who treat of the quantity of gold and silver imported from America into Europe, during the first years of the conquest, According to Sandoval, the fifth paid into the royal treasury of Potosi, was at an average from 1545 to 1564, four millions of piastres of 13 reales de plata; from 1564 to 1585, 1,166,000 piastres; from 1585 to 1624,1,333,000 piastres; and from 1624 to 1633, 666,000 piastres. These numbers between 1564 and 1633, do pot coincide very well with the annual sums stated in the foregoing tables; the differences are sometimes the one way, and sometimes the other; but it is in a particular manner respect *Noticias Americanas, Entretenimiento xiv. § xvii. p. 256. + Hist. Philosophique, (edit. de Geneve, 1780) T. ii. p. 229. ing the fifth of four millions, for the period which precedes the year 1564, that we may most reasonably entertain well founded doubts. Were this sum accurate, the produce of silver extracted from the mine of Potosi, and registered in the royal treasury, would have amounted in nineteen years, between 1545 and 1564, to 641,250,000 Mexican piastres*, reducing the piastres of 13 reals to piastres of 8 reals. On the other hand, it is proved, by official papers in my possession, that the produce in eight years, from 1556 to 1564, amounted to 28,250,000 of these same Mexican piastres†. The result of these data of Sandoval, would consequently be, that during the first eleven years between 1545 and 1556, the Cerro del Potosi must have yielded in silver, of which the fifth was paid, 613 millions of piastres‡, or at an yearly average, 55,726,000 piastres§, equal to 6,556,000 marcs of silver. This is a very extraordinary result, yet it contains however nothing which may be considered as impossible. We may be surprized to see that a single mountain of Peru, has yielded from two to three times more silver than all the collected * 134,662,500 Sterling. Trans. mines of Mexico; but our ideas of wealth are merely relative. It is possible that we may one day discover mountains in the centre of Africa, which with relation to their abundance in the precious metals, may bear the same proportion to the Cordilleras, which the Cordilleras bear to the mountains of Europe. The mine of Valenciana supplies annually more silver than all Saxony, and the single vein of Guanaxuato, wrought throughout its whole length, would be able to produce more than two millions of marcs of silver annually*. We have already observed that there has been extracted from the vein of the veta grande of Sombrerete, for an extent of 30 metres in five months, more than 700,000 marcs. When we reflect on the masses of native red and sulfuretted silver, discovered in our days at Huantajaya in Peru, as well as at Batopilas and the Real del Monte in Mexico, we may conceive what a prodigious quantity of silver may be supplied, by a mineral depository in the Cordilleras of the Andes, when the abundance of produce is united to intrinsic wealth. It is not then the enormous quantity of silver which is supposed to have been extracted during the first eleven years, which induces me to call in question the testimony of Sandoval; * 1,312,633 lb. Troy. Trans. but it is the contradiction which exists between this testimony, and other well authenticated facts. Ulloa, Robertson, Raynal, and the writers of the Encyclopedie Methodique, have not attended to a passage of the Chronicle of Peru, written by Pedro Cieça de Leon. The author who writes with that admirable naïveté, which characterizes all the travellers of the fifteenth and and sixteenth century, proposes to give his countrymen an idea of the prodigious wealth of the mountain of Potosi. He was the better enabled to do this from being on the spot in 1549, four years after the first discovery of these celebrated mines. He relates what he saw himself, while Sandoval speaks of a period more than 90 years before. If we are to sus pect the numbers of Cieça of error, we ought rather to believe that the error lies on the side of excess; for a traveller who aims at effect, and who hopes to astonish his readers is naturally inclined to exaggeration. Let us now examine what the historian of Peru relates*. “The wealth of the Cerro de Potosi,” says he, "is so much beyond what was ever "seen in former times, that to show the great"ness of these mines, I shall describe them 66 as I saw them with my own eyes, when I * Cieça, Chronica del Peru, Cap. cviii. (ed". 1554) p. 261. |