and these give, for the 233 years, an annual average yield of 3,958,000 piastres. For the last fourteen years, 1789 to 1803, the average is only 3,280,000 piastres. Here, then, we have evidence of a progressive decrease of production-the reverse of what seems to have occurred in Mexico. The mines of Pasco, forming the second Peruvian group, are set down, for the first 162 years, 1630 to 1792, at an annual average of about 1,693,000 piastres. This estimate is deduced from the quantity brought to the local mint for coinage in the same period. For the nine years from 1792 to 1801, there were registers purporting to give the actual yield of the mines; and the average per annum appears, thence, to have been 2,389,000 piastres. What is set down for the two years 1802-3 is evidently estimated, and gives an annual average of only 1,700,000 piastres. But for this estimate we can now substitute something more definite. In a despatch, dated 20th July, 1836, from the British Consul at Lima, an account was furnished to our Government of the quantity of silver reduced to bars at the different smelting-houses of Peru for a series of years, including those here in question. The quantity so reduced at the smelting-house of Pasco, in the two years 1802-3, was stated to be 547,098 marcs of Castille, which, at 8 piastres per marc, gives an annual average of 2,325,000 piastres. It would appear, then, that Humboldt's estimate for these two years is considerably under the truth; and that for the item of 3,400,000 piastres in the above account, we may properly substitute 4,700,000: being an addition of 1,300,000. The third Peruvian group, including the mines of Gualgayoc, Guamachuco, and Conchuco, discovered in 1771, was visited and minutely inspected by M. Humboldt in 1802. Yet, if I am not much mistaken, this part of the account is seriously erroneous. It will be seen that the first item states the produce of these mines, from 1771 (when they were first worked) to 1773, at 4,300,000 piastres. If the period referred to includes three years, the annual average would be about 1,433,000 piastres; if only two years, it would be 2,150,000 piastres. Now, at page 354 of the same volume (III.), M. Humboldt states, that as to these years, he was unable to obtain any account, but that they were undoubtedly the most abundant of all. The passage is, in the original, as follows: "Je n'ai pas pu me procurer le produit du Cerro de Gualgayoc, depuis la découverte de ces mines en 1771, jusqu'en 1774. Ces premières années ont été sans doute les plus abondantes de toutes; mais l'argent étant envoyé, à cette époque, à Lima, les archives de Truxillo n'ont pu fournir aucun renseignement à cet égard.' This, however, is not consistent with the next item, where we find the produce of the twenty-nine years 1773 to 1802 set down at upwards of 185,000,000 of piastres, giving an annual average of 6,390,000, or three times as much as the years just before declared to have been the most abundant of all. Fortunately, in the same volume, we find an explanation.. At page 353 [I quote the second French edition], there is a detailed account of the produce of these mines during each of the twenty-nine years. The total appears to be 2,180,457 marcs, which, at 8 piastres to the marc, is equal to 18,533,884 piastres only, or just one-tenth of the amount set down in the account before us. The only mode of reconciling the different statements is to assume, what is never very improbable in the formation of accounts of this kind, that 185,000,000 have been set down, by mistake, for 18,500,000; whence it becomes necessary to make a deduction of 166,806,000 piastres from the general total--reducing the annual average for the twenty-nine years to 639,000 piastres. It will be observed that the third and last item as to these mines, for the year 1803, nearly coincides with the second as thus amended, the annual produce being there estimated at 504,000 piastres. The fourth group of Peruvian mines includes all those not previously enumerated; and the produce of these appears to have been estimated with but little assistance from records of any description. It is not stated what length of time, exactly, the estimate is intended to cover; but the gross sum set down (350,000,000 piastres) would allow for an annual average of 1,500,000 piastres for a period of 220 years, or from 1583 to 1803; and this, in the absence of any other evidence, may be deemed sufficiently supported by the authority of the writer. 3. Other Spanish Mining Countries. D.-"Choco was peopled in 1539; the province of Antioquia, inhabited by cannibals, was conquered in 1541. The alluvial mines of Sonora and Chili have only been worked of late. If we allow 12,000 marcs of gold for the total produce of the Spanish colonies, Piastres. not comprised in the kingdom of New Spain, we may add............. 332,000,000 Gold and silver of the Spanish colonies registered from 1492 to 1803.... 4,035,156,000” This section (D) relates to all the gold raised in the Spanish colonies, other than New Spain, down to 1803; and will probably be deemed less satisfactory than any that have preceded it. Nothing definite is said of the date at which the working of any of the districts alluded to commenced, nor is any reason given for assuming 12,000 marcs (weight) of gold as the annual average, rather than any other sum. When, however, it is remembered that nearly all that is peculiarly valuable in these accounts rests upon the acknowledged ability of Baron Humboldt to form such estimates better than any other man, we can scarcely, in the total absence of more positive evidence, raise an objection on this score. If the relation, in value, of gold to silver, be taken as 15 to 1 for the whole time, the sum set down would, at 12,000 marcs a-year, cover a period of about 195 years; and so fix the starting point for the assumed average at about 1608; which quite agrees with what seems probable. 4. Portuguese American Colonies; Raynal's Statement. E.—“ Raynal supposes, for the first sixty years, a production double that of the present time. He admits, according to the registers of the fleets, that from the discovery of the mines of Brazil down to 1755 there has been sent to Europe gold to the value of ................ 480,000,000 From 1756 to 1803, reckoning only an annual production of 32,000 marcs 204,544,000 Gold and silver of the Portuguese colonies, registered from the discovery of Brazil to 1803......... 684,544,000" This section of the account (E) has an evil distinction: it can hardly be said to rest in any degree upon the authority of Baron Humboldt. It will be borne in mind that he is writing upon New Spain only; and though he occasionally gives particular attention to the other Spanish colonies, he gives very little to those of Portugal, and, when speaking of them, advances nothing as founded on his own knowledge. Here he quotes Raynal as his sole authority; and it should not be unnoticed that he has previously, in the same work, when observing upon Raynal's loose and inaccurate estimates of the produce of silver in New Spain, evinced very little respect for his ability as a statist. The_passage referred to by way of authority is in Raynal's work on the East and West Indies, vol. iv., p. 497*; and it is important to observe that it does not, as might be expected, occur as part of any formal statement or estimate of the produce of the mines of Brazil, but comes in the midst of a declamatory attack upon the English, as monopolists of the commerce of Portugal. I extract the whole of what Raynal says:— "The fleets destined for the Brazils were the sole property of the English. The riches they brought back belonged to them. They would not even suffer them to pass through the hands of the Portuguese, and only borrowed or purchased their name, because they could not do without it. These strangers disappeared as soon as they had acquired the fortune they intended, and left that nation impoverished and exhausted, at whose expense they had enriched themselves. It is demonstrable from the registers of the fleets that in the space of sixty years, that is, from the discovery of the mines to the year 1756, 2,400,000,000 livres worth of gold had been brought away from Brazil, and yet, in this latter period, all the specie in Portugal amounted to no more than 15,000,000 or 20,000,000, and at that time the nation owed 100,000,000 or moret." The acknowledged source of this part of the account may therefore fairly induce a suspicion that it is unworthy of trust. The force of Raynal's rhetorical accusation of our countrymen is made partly dependent upon the quantity of gold they had contrived to intercept on its way into Portugal; and the phrase "it is demonstrable from the registers of the fleets" affords, in the absence of any such demonstration, but weak evidence that their offence is not exaggerated. Yet, as Baron Humboldt has thought fit to adopt this estimate, we may reasonably assume that, suspicious as it is, there was no better available, and that its substantial accuracy did not to him seem very improbable; nor can I discover that any additional or more positive evidence has yet come to light touching the gold brought to Europe from America, exclusive of New Spain, before the middle of the 18th century. Whether any such evidence may be fairly deduced from the apparent effect on the European market of the American 1783. "A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies." I quote the English translation of Taking the livre at 10d. sterling, which is a little above its true value, the 2,400,000,000 of livres here referred to would be equivalent to 100,000,0007.—the amount of specie in Portugal (apparently both gold and silver) would appear, according to the same passage, to have varied from 625,000l. to 833,0007., and the debt of that country to have been rather more than 4,000,000l. sterling. supply during that period, is a question that belongs to a subsequent stage of this inquiry. As to the period included in the second item of this section (E), from 1756 to 1803, some more definite information is afforded in a memoir published in a German periodical (la Revue Trimestrielle), about twelve years ago, by Baron Humboldt himself. He there states, as ascertained facts, that the produce of the most fruitful gold region of Brazil (the Minas Geraes), paying the duty of one-fifth to the Crown, oscillated, in the period from 1752 to 1761, between 6,400 and 8,000 kilogrammes per annum; that from 1785 to 1794, it averaged only 3,300 kilogrammes; from 1810 to 1817, fell to a mean of 1,600 kilogrammes; and in 1822, according to Scheffer, was only 350 kilogrammes; that it afterwards rose, under the exertions of some English companies; but that no accounts had been obtained since 1822. If, on the basis thus furnished, we assume that this part of Brazil, alone, yielded, from 1757 to 1770, an average of 7,000 kilogrammes; from 1771 to 1794, one of 4,000 kilogrammes ; and from 1795 to 1803, only 2,500 kilogrammes per annum; we shall have a total of 216,500 kilogrammes for the forty-seven years from 1756 to 1803. The marc of Castile being equivalent to 23 of a kilogramme, this gives 941,304 marcs (rather more than 8,000,000 piastres), or about 20,000 marcs a-year, on an average, for the most fertile gold region of Brazil only; and seems, therefore, to support the first estimate of 32,000 marcs for all the Portuguese colonies during the same period. 14 × 7 24 × 4 47 = 98,000 9 × 2=22,500 216,500 •23 ÷ 216,500 × 8·5 = 8,001,084 But even if we accept Raynal's authority, as sanctioned by Baron Humboldt, down to 1756, and assume that from 1756 to 1803 the average yield of the mines was 32,000 marcs a-year, we must still regard this section as defective. It will have been observed that Raynal's statement concerns-not the quantity of gold raised in Brazil within a given period, but-the quantity sent thence, by the regular fleets, to Portugal. In this respect, therefore, the item taken by Humboldt from Raynal is inconsistent, in point of form, with the rest of the account-which is not of the quantity sent to Europe, but of the whole quantity obtained from the mines. If we assume that even so much as nine-tenths of the whole quantity raised and brought within official cognizance reached Europe in these fleets down to 1756, leaving only the remaining tenth to represent the quantity sent elsewhere than to Portugal, lost in transit, and retained in the country, we must still add one-ninth part of the sum stated by Raynal to bring the item into formal agreement with the account of which it is here made to form a part. This one-ninth part would be about 53,000,000 piastres. * Valuing the Portuguese arroba at 14·656 kilogrammes. VOL. XIV. PART I. 5. The Contraband Trade in Gold and Silver. F.-GOLD AND SILVER, NOT REGISTERED, RAISED FROM THE MINES OF THE Piastres. I reckon for New Spain, where the furtive extraction has been very considerable, down to the middle of the 18th century, one-seventh 260,000,000 For Potosi, one-fourth of the total produce, on account of the enormous contraband at the commencement 274,000,000 Pasco, Gualgayoc, and the rest of Peru, whence the silver went by the Amazons river, through Brazil 200,000,000 For the gold of Chili, New Granada, and the kingdom of Buenos This last section (F) rests entirely upon the opinion of Baron Humboldt. It assumes that, on a general average, about one-sixth of all the gold and silver raised from the American mines, from the European discovery down to 1803, escaped registration, or otherwise passed into the market without being noticed or allowed for by any of the authorities previously relied upon. The figures, as they stand, may be taken to represent the apparent deficiency of these records, as they appeared to a good judge, at the beginning of the present century. And, so regarded, they tend strongly to shake one's confidence in the value of the entire statement. If it be probable that one-sixth was smuggled, who shall say that the proportion did not, in fact, amount to one-fourth, or one-third, or even to a larger proportion? Here, however, speculation is at fault. Baron Humboldt's estimate of the contraband must pass, because there is no evidence either to confirm, or to impeach its accuracy. Two alterations, however, are necessary in this section (F), as consequent on changes in previous parts of the account. In the third item, relating to the mines of Pasco, Gualgayoc, &c., the contraband is measured by the registered produce, and the latter, as I have shown, (ante p. 14,) is erroneously stated. According to section C, Humboldt's estimate of the total registered produce of these mines was 839,445,000 piastres. It has been seen that 1,300,000 piastres must be added for the mines of Pasco, as their produce is stated in a Consul's return, dated 1836, and is only estimated by Humboldt. And the error in the statement as to the mines of Gualgayoc, &c., requires a deduction of 166,806,000 piastres. These amendments reduce the registered produce of these mines 166,806,000 839,445,000 to 673,939,000 piastres; or by about one165,506,000 fifth. A corresponding deduction from the estimated contraband will reduce that by about 40,000,000 piastres. 1,300,000 165,506,000 673,939,000 A similar amendment, but by way of addition, to the estimated contraband in Brazil, before 1756, (see the last paragraph on p. 17,) will increase this part of the account by 14,000,000 piastres. I must also observe that about the same proportion is allowed for |