lated by the historians of the conquest. I have. carefully examined these facts, and endeavoured to collect all the passages where the wealth which fell into the hands of the Europeans, is estimated in pesos ensayados, or in castelianos de oro; for it is from these data, and not from the vague, and frequently repeated expressions of "enormous quantity of gold or immense treasures," that we shall be able to obtain satisfactory results.

In 1502, Ovando sent to Spain a fleet of eighteen vessels, commanded by Boyadilla and Roldan, and laden with a great quantity of gold. The greater part of these vessels perished in the tempest, in which Christopher Columbus nearly lost his life, in his first voyage on the shores of St. Domingo. The historians of the time consider this fleet as one of the richest; and yet they all agree that the freight in gold did not exceed 200,000 pesos*, which reckoning them as pesos de minas at 14 reals, make the moderate sum of 1,750,000 livres tournoist, or 2560 marcs of gold. The presents which Cortez received on his passage through Chalco, only amounted to 3000 pesos de oro, or to 38 marcs of weight in gold.

*Herrera, Decada i. Lib. i. Cap. i. (T. i. p. 126).
† 71,427 Sterling. Trans.

Cartas de Hernan Cortez, Carta i. § xviii,

When Montezuma assembled his vassals to take the oath of fidelity to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who as they were made to believe descended in a straight line from Quetzalcoatl*, the Bouddha of the Aztecs, Cortez demanded a tribute in gold: "I feigned," he writes to the Emperor," that your highness was in great "want of this metal, for certain works which

you wished to execute.". The fifth of the tribute, paid into the chest of the army, amounted to 32,400 pesost; from which we are to conclude that the quantity of gold collected by the stratagem of the General, amounted to 2080 marcs. At the taking of Tenochtitlan, the spoil which fell into the hands of the Spaniards, did not exceed in weight according to the assertion of Cortez, 130,000 castellanos, or 2600 marcs of gold; and accord

* See my Vues des Cordilleres, and Monumens de l'Amerique, Pl. vii.

+ Cartas de Hernan Cortez, Carta i. § xxix. p. 98.

Carta iii. § li. p. 301. The expression se fundiò mas de 138,000 castellanos is doubtful. We are ignorant whether Cortez speaks of castellanos as a weight, or as an imaginary coin. I follow with the Abbe Clavigero the former hypothesis, (Storia de Messico, T. iii. p. 232). In the second case the spoil would only have been 1660 marcs of gold; for Herrera expressly says, that "Castellano y peso "es uno," and according to him a peso de minas is worth 14 reals; a peso ensayado, thirteen reals (de plata) and one quartillo. Decada viii. Lib. ii. c. 10. T. v. p. 41.

ing to Bernal Diaz it amounted to 380,000 pesos, which are equivalent to 4890 marcs.

་

The two periods of the conquest of Peru, in which the Spaniards collected the greatest quantity of wealth, are those of the proceedings against Atahualpa, and the pillage of Cuzco. The ransom of the Inca which was divided in 1531, among 60 cavaliers, and 100 foot, amounted according to Garcilasso, to 3,930,000 ducats in gold, and 672,670 ducats in silver. Reducing these sums into marcs, we find 41,987 marcs of gold, and 115,508 marcs of silver, amounting together in value to 3,858,058 piastres, at 8 reals de plata Mexicana, or 20,149,804* livres tournoist. This treasure which was collected together in one house, the ruins of which I saw during my stay at Caxamarca in 1802, had served as ornaments in the temples of the sun of Pachacamac, Huailas, Cuzco, Guamachuco, and Sicllapampa. Gomara‡, only estimates the ransom of Atalhualpa at 52,000 marcs of silver, and at 1,326,500 pesos de oro, or to 17,000 marcs of silver. In whatever relates to numbers, it seldom happens that the

* £822,438 Sterling. Trans.

+ Garcilasso, P. ii. Lib. i. c. 28 and 38. (T. ii. p. 27 and 51). Father Blas Valera reckons 4,800,000 ducados.

Historia de las Indias, 1553, p. 67.

authors of the 16th century are unanimous. The spoil of Cuzco, according to Herrera*, was more than two millions of pesos, or above 25,700 marcs of gold.

From these data it appears probable, that the conquests of Mexico and Peru, did not throw into the hands of the Spaniards more than 80,000 marcs of gold. The greater part of the treasures were buried by the Indians, or thrown into the lakes†; and so much of them as have been found from time to time in raking with Huacas, and paid the fifth to the King, have been confounded with the gold extracted from the mines. We shall add to these 80,000 marcs of gold, what was carried off in small portions from the West India Islands, the coast of Paria and Saint Martha, Darien and Florida; and we shall have, reckoning two thousand marcs per annum, till the mines of Tasco and Potosi began to be worked, another sum of 106,000 marcs of gold.

The quantity of specie now in circulation in

*Dec. v. Lib. vi. c. 3.

Into the lake of Tezcuco in Mexico; into Guatavita to the north west of Santa Fe de Bogota; and into the lakes of Titicaca, and of the valley of Orcos. This last lake is supposed to contain the famous gold chain, which the Inca Huayna Capac caused to be made on the birth of his son Huescar, and which has so much occupied the imagination of the first colonists of Peru.

the New World, is much less than is commonly supposed. To judge of this with any degree of accuracy, we must recollect that the specie of France*, is estimated at 2500 millions of livres tournoist; that of Spaint, at 450 millions §; and that of Great Britain, at 920 millions; and that the mass of gold and silver which remains in circulation in a country, far from following a proportion to its population, depends rather on the prosperity, and civilization of the inhabitants, and the quantity of productions which require to be represented by pecuniary signs. Supposing the value of the precious metals existing either in specie, or in wrought gold and silver,

According to M. Necker in 1784, at 2200 millions of livres; according to M. Arnould in 1791, two thousand millions of livres; according to M. Desrotours in 1801, at 2290 millions; and according to M. M. Peuchet and Gerboux in 1805, at 2550 millions of livres tournois.

+ Upwards of 102 millions Sterling. Trans.

According to Ustariz in 1724, a hundred million of piastres, and according to the assertion of M. Musquiz, the minister of finance, cited in the work of M. Bourgoing, 80 millions of piastres in 1782.

+ $18,367,340 Sterling. Trans.

Adam Smith only estimates it at 30 millions sterling

at most.

£37,551,000 Sterling. Trans.