Besides, the greatest number of the most celebrated authors instead of investigating for themselves, contented themselves with copying the valuations of Don Geronimo de Ustariz, as if merely to quote the particular opinion of a Spanish author was sufficient to inspire confidence. Before communicating my own results let us examine those calculations which have been hitherto before the public.

Ustariz in his excellent treatise of commerce and navigation † founds his calculations on those of Don Sancho de Moncada and Don Pedro Fernandez de Navarete. The former who was professor in the University of Alcala, affirms vaguely, that "according to a repre"sentation made to the king, there has entered "into Spain between 1492 and 1595, in gold "and silver extracted from the mines of "America, two thousand millions of piastres;

that at least the same quantity had entered "without being registered; and that of all "the gold and silver it would be difficult to "find in Spain, two hundred millions, one "hundred in coin, and another hundred in "household furniture." Ustariz adds to these two thousand millions, the quantity imported

*Forbonnais, Raynal, Gerboux, and the judicious author of the Recherches sur le Commerce (Amst. 1778.)

+ Edition of Paris 1753, p. 11. Toze, kleine schriften, 1791, p. 99.

into Spain, between 1595 and 1724 which he estimates at 1536 millions, so that the total produce of Spanish America in gold and silver, from 1492 to 1724 amounted, according to this author, to 5536 millions of piastres.

It is easy to prove that this calculation does not rest on very solid foundations. Four thousand millions divided among one hundred and three years from 1492 to 1595, suppose an average annual produce of more than 38 millions. Now we learn from the history of the mines of America, that the quantity of gold and silver introduced into Spain between 1492 and 1535 was very small, and at most cannot be estimated at more than 130 or 140 millions. If however we admit 12 millions of piastres per annum, for this period the sum which Ustariz fixes for the period between 1595 and 1724, we shall find that the annual produce between 1535 and 1595 ought at least to be 58 millions. All the estimates are four or five times too high, as we may be convinced of by casting our eyes over the registers of Potosi and recollecting that the mines of New Spain till the beginning of the eighteenth century, never yielded above three millions of piastres per annum. Moreover Garcilasso and Herera, in speaking of the great wealth of the mines of the New Continent, expressly say that towards

the end of the sixteenth century from ten to twelve millions of piastres annually entered Spain by the mouth of the Guadalquivir. The estimates in round numbers of thousands of millions, far from being entitled to be considered as the fruits of accurate research, are merely the result of an approximate calculalation. Hence every author has thought himentitled to fix on different quantities.

Solorzano affirms on the authority of Davila that Spain received from America, from its discovery in 1492 to 1628, fifteen hundred millions of registered piastres, a sum which differs nearly by one half from that adopted by Ustariz. On the other hand we find in the political treatise of Navarete †, that between 1519 and 1617 according to registers there was imported 1536 millions. According to this valuation we attribute to the period of 98 years, a smaller sum of piastres than what Solorzano and Davila, admit for the period of 136 years, which is a contradiction so much the greater as the one of these periods composes a part of the other.

Raynal in the first editions of his celebrated work on the settlements in the Indies + es

* De Indiarum Jure, T. II. p. 846. Hist. magna Mutritensis, p. 472.

+ De la conservacion de las Monarquias, Disc. XXI. Compare the changes made in Liv. viii. § xlii.; Liv., x. § liv.

timated the gold and silver imported from America into Europe, since the discovery of the New World at nine thousand millions of piastres; but in 1780 he reduced this sum to five thousand millions. He supposes that the annual importation of registered gold and silver into Spain on an average of eleven years from 1754 to 1764 only amounted to 13,984,185 piastres, while we know from the registers preserved in the mint of Mexico, that at that very period New Spain alone produced annually nearly twelve millions of piastres. I cannot conceive how an author full of sagacity and generally well informed, can have allowed himself to form such erroneous notions specting the commerce in the precious metals. Raynal gives tables apparently the result of very extensive labour; he estimates separately the quantities of gold and silver from each part of the colonies; and notwithstanding this apparent accuracy, a great number of these calculations rest on very far

re

from solid foun

or

dations. He affirms that Spain drew from 1780, every year from the continent of America, 89,095,052 livres in gold and silver, 16,970,484 piastres; because from an average year taken during the period from 1748 to 1758 there was imported:

* Hist. Philosophique, Geneva Ed". 1780, T. II. p. 339,

From Carthagena or
New Grenada

|44,196,047) 8,418,294

14,087,304 2,683,296

From Lima or Peru 25,267,849 4,812,924

From Buenos Ayres or

the kingdom of La

Plata

From Caracas

5,304,705 1,010,420

Total of an average year. 89,095,049 16,970,435

It is surprisiong to see Raynal confound the produce of 1750 with that of 1780: for during that space of thirty years, the exportation of silver from Mexico had increased more than a fourth, and the mines of South America far from being exhausted were become more abundant. In 1780 there was coined at the mint of Mexico, alone, the sum of 17,514,263 piastres; while the Abbe Raynal estimates the total produce of the mines of Spanish America, at only eighteen millions. He ought to have known from the testimony of a statesman, thoroughly informed respecting the commerce of Spain that in 1775 the total produce had already risen to 30 millions of piastres, or to 157,500,000 livres tournois per

annum.

*Campomanes, Discurso sobre la Educacion popular de los artizanos, Vol. ii. p. 331.