The Spirit Of Laws Part 15
However, it was not long before the specie of Europe was doubled; this appeared from the price of commodities, which everywhere was doubled.
The Spaniards raked into the mines, scooped out mountains, invented machines to draw out water, to break the ore, and separate it; and as they sported with the lives of the Indians, they forced them to labor without mercy. The specie of Europe soon doubled, and the profit of Spain diminished in the same proportion; they had every year the same quant.i.ty of metal, which had become by one-half less precious.
In double the time the specie still doubled, and the profit still diminished another half.
It diminished even more than half: let us see in what manner.
To extract the gold from the mines, to give it the requisite preparations, and to import it into Europe, must be attended with some certain expense. I will suppose this to be as 1 to 64. When the specie was once doubled, and consequently became by one-half less precious, the expense was as 2 to 64. Thus the galoons which brought to Spain the same quant.i.ty of gold, brought a thing which really was of less value by one-half, though the expenses attending it had been twice as high.
If we proceed doubling and doubling, we shall find in this progression the cause of the impotency of the wealth of Spain.
It is about two hundred years since they have worked their Indian mines. I suppose the quant.i.ty of specie at present in the trading world is to that before the discovery of the Indies as 32 is to 1; that is, it has been doubled five times: in two hundred years more the same quant.i.ty will be to that before the discovery as 64 is to 1; that is, it will be doubled once more. Now, at present, fifty quintals of ore yield four, five, and six ounces of gold;154 and when it yields only two, the miner receives no more from it than his expenses. In two hundred years, when the miner will extract only four, this too will only defray his charges. There will then be but little profit to be drawn from the gold mines. The same reasoning will hold good of silver, except that the working of the silver mines is a little more advantageous than those of gold.
But, if mines should be discovered so fruitful as to give a much greater profit, the more fruitful they may be, the sooner the profit will cease.
The Portuguese in Brazil have found mines of gold so rich,155 that they must necessarily very soon make a considerable diminution in the profits of those of Spain, as well as in their own.
I have frequently heard people deplore the blindness of the Court of France, who repulsed Christopher Columbus, when he made the proposal of discovering the Indies.156 Indeed they did, though perhaps without design, an act of the greatest wisdom. Spain has behaved like the foolish king who desired that everything he touched might be converted into gold, and who was obliged to beg of the G.o.ds to put an end to his misery.
The companies and banks established in many nations have put a finishing stroke to the lowering of gold and silver as a sign of representation of riches; for by new fictions they have multiplied in such a manner the signs of wealth, that gold and silver having this office only in part have become less precious.
Thus public credit serves instead of mines, and diminishes the profit which the Spaniards drew from theirs.
True it is that the Dutch trade to the East Indies has increased, in some measure, the value of the Spanish merchandise:157 for as they carry bullion, and give it in exchange for the merchandise of the East, they ease the Spaniards of part of a commodity which in Europe abounds too much.
And this trade, in which Spain seems to be only indirectly concerned, is as advantageous to that nation as to those who are directly employed in carrying it on.
From what has been said we may form a judgment of the last order of the Council of Spain, which prohibits the making use of gold and silver in gildings, and other superfluities; a decree as ridiculous as it would be for the states of Holland to prohibit the consumption of spices.
My reasoning does not hold good against all mines; those of Germany and Hungary, which produce little more than the expense of working them, are extremely useful. They are found in the princ.i.p.al state; they employ many thousand men, who there consume their superfluous commodities, and they are properly a manufacture of the country.
The mines of Germany and Hungary promote the culture of land; the working of those of Mexico and Peru destroys it.
The Indies and Spain are two powers under the same master; but the Indies are the princ.i.p.al, while Spain is only an accessory. It is in vain for politics to attempt to bring back the princ.i.p.al to the accessory; the Indies will always draw Spain to themselves.
Of the merchandise, to the value of about fifty millions of livres, annually sent to the Indies, Spain furnishes only two millions and a half: the Indies trade for fifty millions, the Spaniards for two and a half.
That must be a bad kind of riches which depends on accident, and not on the industry of a nation, on the number of its inhabitants, and on the cultivation of its lands. The King of Spain, who receives great sums from his custom-house at Cadiz, is in this respect only a rich individual in a state extremely poor. Everything pa.s.ses between strangers and himself, while his subjects have scarcely any share in it; this commerce is independent both of the good and bad fortune of his kingdom.
Were some provinces of Castile able to give him a sum equal to that of the custom-house of Cadiz, his power would be much greater; his riches would be the effect of the wealth of the country; these provinces would animate all the others, and they would be altogether more capable of supporting their respective charges; instead of a great treasury he would have a great people.
23.-A Problem It is not for me to decide the question whether if Spain be not herself able to carry on the trade of the Indies, it would not be better to leave it open to strangers. I will only say that it is for their advantage to load this commerce with as few obstacles as politics will permit. When the merchandise which several nations send to the Indies is very dear, the inhabitants of that country give a great deal of their commodities, which are gold and silver, for very little of those of foreigners; the contrary to this happens when they are at a low price. It would perhaps be of use that these nations should undersell each other, to the end that the merchandise carried to the Indies might be always cheap. These are principles which deserve to be examined, without separating them, however, from other considerations: the safety of the Indies, the advantages of only one custom-house, the danger of making great alterations, and the foreseen inconveniences, which are often less dangerous than those which cannot be foreseen.
1 Pliny, lib. VI. cap. xxiii.
2 See Pausanias, "Laconia," sine III. cap. xii.
3 See Pliny, book VI. chap. xix., and Strabo, book XV.
4 Lib. VI.
5 Lib. XI.
6 Diodorus, lib. II.
7 Ibid.
8 Pliny, lib. VI. cap. xvi., and Strabo, lib. XI.
9 Strabo, lib. XI.
10 Ibid.
11 The authority of Patroclus is of great weight, as appears from a pa.s.sage in Strabo, lib. II.
12 Pliny lib. VI. cap. xvii. See also Strabo, lib. XI., upon the pa.s.sage by which the merchandise was conveyed from the Phasis to the Cyrus.
13 There must have been very great changes in that country since the time of Ptolemy, who gives us an account of so many rivers that empty themselves into the east side of the Caspian Sea. In the Czar's chart we find only the river of Astrabat; in that of M. Bathalsi there is none at all.
14 See Jenkinson's account of this, in the "Collection of Voyages to the North," vol. iv.
15 I am disposed to think that thence the Lake Aral was formed.
16 Claudius Caesar, in Plin. lib. VI. cap. xi.
17 He was slain by Ptolemy Ceraunus.
18 See Strabo, lib. XI.
19 They founded Tartessus, and made a settlement at Cadiz.
20 Kings ix.; 2 Chron. viii.
21 Against Appian.
22 Chap. 1 of this book.
23 The proportion between gold and silver, as settled in Europe, may sometimes render it profitable to take goldinstead of silver into the East Indies; but the advantage is very trifling.
24 See Pliny, lib. VI. cap. xxii., and Strabo, lib. XV.
25 They are mostly shallow; but Sicily has excellent ports.
26 I say the province of Holland; for the ports of Zealand are deep enough.
27 That is, to compare magnitudes of the same kind, the action or pressure of the fluid upon the ship will be to the resistance of the same ship as, etc.
28 The King of Persia.
29 On the "Athenian Republic."
30 See Strabo, lib. VIII.
31 "Iliad," lib. II.
32 Ibid.
33 Strabo, lib. IX. p. 914.
34 Strabo, lib. XV.
35 Herodotus, in "Melpomene."
36 Strabo, lib. XV.
37 Pliny says. "Ariana regio ambusta fervoribus, desertisque circ.u.mdata." ("Nat. Hist." VI. cap. xxiii.)-Ed.
38 Strabo, lib. XV.
39 Pliny, lib. VI. cap. xxiii.; Strabo, lib. XV.
40 They sailed not upon the rivers, lest they should defile the elements (Hyde's "Religion of the Persians"). Even to this day they have no maritime commerce. Those who take to the sea are treated by them as atheists.
41 Strabo, lib. XV.
42 Herodotus (in "Melpomene ") says that Darius conquered the Indies; this must be understood only to mean Ariana; and even this was only an ideal conquest.
43 Strabo, lib. XV.
44 This cannot be understood of all the Ichthyophagi, who inhabited a coast of ten thousand furlongs in extent. How was it possible for Alexander to have maintained them? How could he command their submission? This can be only understood of some particular tribes. Nearchus, in his book "Rerum Indicarum," says that at the extremity of this coast, on the side of Persia, he had found some people who were less Ichthyophagi than the others. I should think that Alexander's prohibition related to these people, or to some other tribe still more bordering on Persia.
45 Alexandria was founded on a flat sh.o.r.e, called Rhacotis, where, in ancient times, the kings had kept a garrison to prevent all strangers, and more particularly the Greeks, from entering the country.-Pliny, lib. VI. cap. x.; Strabo, lib. XVIII.
46 Arrian, "de expedit. Alexandri," lib. VII.
47 Ibid.
48 Strabo, lib. VI., towards the end.
49 Seeing Babylon overflowed, he looked upon the neighboring country of Arabia as an island.-Aristob. in Strabo, lib. XVI.
50 See the book "Rerum Indicarum."
51 Strabo, lib. XVI.
52 Ibid.
53 These gave them an aversion to strangers.
54 It is true that Strabo, Pomponius Mela, and Pliny believed the Caspian a part of the Northern Ocean, while their predecessors Diodorus, Aristotle, and Herodotus were correct in their surmises that it was an isolated sea.-Ed.
55 Pliny, lib. II. cap. lxvii., and lib. VI. cap. ix. and xii., and Strabo, lib. XI.; Arrian, "de expedit. Alexandri," lib. III. p. 74, and lib. V. p. 104.
56 Arrian, de expedite. Alexandri," lib. VII.
57 Pliny, lib. II. cap. lxiv.
58 See the Czar's Chart.
59 Pliny, lib. VI. cap. xvii.
60 Lib. XV.
61 Apollonius Adrumatinus in Strabo, lib. II.
62 The Macedonians of Bactria, India, and Ariana, having separated themselves from Syria, formed a great state.
63 Lib. VI. cap. xxiii.
64 Pliny, lib. VI. cap. xxiii.
65 Lib. XI. "Sigertidis regnum."
66 The monsoons blow part of the year from one quarter, and part from another; the trade winds blow the whole year round from the same quarter.
67 Lib. VI. cap. xxiii.
68 Herodotus, "Melpomene."
69 Pliny, lib. VI. cap. xxiii.
70 Ibid.
71 Lib. XV.
72 Pliny, lib. VI. cap. xxiii.
73 Lib. XV.
74 He was desirous of conquering it.-Herodotus, lib. IV.
75 Pliny, lib. II. cap. lxvii.; Pomponius Mela, lib. III. cap. ix.
76 Herodotus, in "Melpomene."
77 Add to this what I shall say in chap. ii of this book on the navigation of Hanno.
78 In the months of October, November, December, and January the wind in the Atlantic Ocean is found to blow northeast; our ships therefore cross the line, and to avoid the wind, which is there generally east, they direct their course to the south; or else they enter into the torrid zone, in those places where the wind is west.