Note 23 — Chapter IV · Wherein are considered the riches of the spice trade of these Malucas Islands and the others.

Four thousand four hundred bares of cloves, each bare containing 640 libras, amount to 2,816,000 libras—which at one ducado, the price at which they are sold [in Europe] will bring the same number of ducados. All this can be bought for a hundred thousand ducados.23 It is not bought with money, but with cloth purchased in India and in China; and what in those countries costs ten is sold in the Malucas at fifty. This profit is at present possessed by the Dutch, who buy on the coast of Caramendel, and from the Chinese in Cochinchina and Java, whence they take the merchandise which they trade for cloves in Maluco. The nutmeg, according to Don Juan de Silva, is worth 500U ducados, when transported to these parts.