Periods. tation of gold 1492-1500 Remarks & silver from relative to the History of the Mines. Discovery of the West India Islands; Gold washing places of Cibao; expedition of Alonzo Nino to the coast of Paria; voyage of 250,000 Cabral. The fleets did not arrive every year in Spain, and that of Ovando was considered as immensely rich, though it was only laden with 2560 marcs of silver. The Mexican mines of Tasco, Zultepeque, and Pachuca wrought; Peruvian mines of Porco, Carangas, Andacava, Oruro, Carabaya, 1500-1545 3,000,000 and Chaquiapu (or la Paz); spoil at Tenochtitlan, and at Caxamarca, and Cuzco; conquest of Choco and Antioquia. Mines of Zacatecas and Guanaxuato in New Spain; Cerro del 1545-1600 11,000,000 Potosi, in the Cordilleras of Peru; tranquil possession of Chili, and the provincias internas of Mexico. The mines of Potosi begin to get exhausted, especially after the middle of the 17th century; but the mines of Yauricocha are dis 1600 1700 16,000,000 covered. The mining produce of New Spain, rises from two to five millions of piastres per annum; the gold washing places of Barbacoas and Choco. The alluvious mines of Brazil wrought; Mexican mines of la Biscaina, Xacal; Tlapujahua, Sombre 1700 1750 22,500,000 rete, and Batopilas; importation VOL. III. of gold and silver into Spain, from 1748 to 1753, at an average 18 millions of piastres annually. 2 F. Average an-face Periods,ver from relative to the History of the Mines. at that Piastres, Last period of the splendour of to esosiy gidan Pasco mine of Valenciana wrought; onik ospol to noliboqdiscovery of the mines of Catorce, to 998yov it to and the Cerro de Gualgayoc; im1750 180335,300,000 portation of gold and silver into to test has miege Spain, towards the commencement -9aderimi a borobiano 24of the 19th century, 434 millions asbal vino 28w i naoof piastres. We have already remarked that the proportion, between gold and silver which was before the discovery of America as 10 to 1, gradually changed to 16: 1. It would be of importance to know the quantity of gold which at different periods has flowed from the one continent to the other; but for this we want accurate data. The little which we know is reduced to the following facts. Till 1525 Europe had received from the new world little else than gold; and from that period till the discovery of the mines of Brazil towards the end of the seventeenth century, the silver imported exceeded the importation of gold in the proportion of 60 or 65 to 1. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the commerce in the precious metals underwent an extraordinary revolution: the produce of the silver mines experienced small variation; but Brazil, Choco, Antioquia, Po 1 of silver for payan and Chili, have furnished so considerable • a quantity of gold, that Europe has not perhaps drawn from America 30 marcs one mare of gold. In the last half of the past century the silver has again increased in the market. The mines of New Spain supplied Spain at an average with two millions and a half of marcs of silver annually, instead of the six hundred thousand which they furnished between 1700 and 1710. As the produce of gold has not continued to increase in the same proportion, the result is that from 1750 to 1800, the quantity of gold imported into Europe was to the quantity of silver imported * in the proportion of 1 to 40. The mines of New Spain have as it were counterbalanced the effects which the abundance of the gold of Brazil would have produced. In general we ought not to be astonished that the proportion between the respective values of gold and silver has not always varied in a very sensible manner according as one of these may have preponderated in the mass of metal imported from America into Europe. The accumulation of silver appears to have produced its whole effect Meggens found the proportion between gold and silver, from 1748 to 1753 as 1 to 223; from 1753 to 1764 as 1 to 26. M. Gerboux supposed it in 1803 as 1 to 293. anterior to the year 1650, when the proportion of gold and silver was in Spain and Italy as 1 to 15. Since that period the population and commercial relations of Europe have experienced such a considerable increase, that the variations in the value of the precious metals have depended on a great number of combined causes, and especially on the exportation of silver to the East Indies and China, and its consumption in plate. If Europe at present produces according to M. Heron de Villefosse, 215,000 marcs of silver for 5300 marcs of gold, or 40 marcs of silver for one marc of gold, it appears on the other hand, that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the proportion was more in favour of the silver. The produce of the mines and gold washing places diminished in Germany and Hungary at the time that the silver mines were most successfully wrought. The mines of Freiberg alone, which in the sixteenth century yielded only 16,000 marcs per annum, yield more than 50,000 at present. I am inclined to believe that even without the discovery of America, the value of gold would have risen in Europe. Let us examine, before concluding this. chapter, what has become of the treasures drawn from the New Continent. Where are the twenty eight thousand millions of livres tournois, which Europe has received for three centuries from Spanish and Portuguese America? Forbonnais supposed that of 274 thousand millions of livres which according to him were imported from the one continent into the other, between 1492 and 1724, the half has been absorbed by the Indian and Levant trade; that a fourth was used in plate, or lost in melting, or by the minute division in trinkets; and that the remainder was converted into specie. He estimated the precious metals circulating in Europe in 1766 at 7500 millions of livres tournois *, without including in this sum the produce of the mines of Spanish America since 1724, nor the specie existing in Europe previous to the discovery of the New World. M. Gerboux, in an interesting memoir on pecuniary legislation, has endeavoured to verify and extend the calculations of Forbonnais. He believes the actual existing specie of Europe amounts to 10,600 millions of livres tournois †, or 219 millions of piastres, and that before 1492 there were only 600 millions or 114 millions of piastres. + It is surprising that such an enlightened financier, as M. Necker should have ad * £306,122,400 Sterling. Trans. |