Note 5 — COMMERCE OF THE PHILIPPINES WITH NUEVA ESPAÑA

At the end of the atlas volume of Raynal’s Histoire ... des établissemens et du commerce des Européens (ed. of 1780, Geneva) are various supplementary sheets, containing tabulated summaries of the kinds and amounts of trade carried on by the leading European nations with their colonial possessions, chiefly those of America; from some of these we abstract items of interest which have some relation to the scope of our work. The first of these shows the amount and value of the commerce of the Company of Holland in the East Indies from 1720 to 1729 inclusive. In these ten years they sent out an average of 37 or 38 ships each year, manned by about 7,000 men; of these, 30 returned to Europe. The merchandise sold by the company amounted, in round numbers, to an average of 18,859,000 florins yearly, and the dividends distributed among the partners to 23⅗ per cent (ranging, in different years, from 12½ to 40 per cent); the amount of money sent to the Cape of Good Hope and to the Asian Islands averaged 6,560,000 florins. The average sales of spices yearly were as follows: Pepper, 4,500,000 pounds, at 11 sols, 2,475,000 florins; cinnamon, 400,000 pounds, at 5¾ florins, 2,300,000 florins; cloves, 400,000 pounds, at 4¼ florins, 1,700,000 florins; nutmegs, 250,000 pounds, at 3¾ florins, 937,500 florins; mace, 90,000 pounds, at 6½ florins, 585,000 florins—a total of 7,997,500 florins. The original capital of the Dutch East India Company was 6,459,840 florins; about 57 per cent of this was held in Amsterdam, and about 21 per cent in the province of Zeeland. The number of shares was 2,153, each of 3,000 florins. During the period 1605 to 1777, the dividends annually distributed ranged usually from 12½ to 40 per cent; in the following years they exceeded the latter rate—being in 1606, 75 per cent; in 1610, 50; in 1612, 57½; in 1615, 42½; in 1616, 62½; in 1671, 45 and 15. During 1771–77, they were uniformly 12½ per cent. These were paid usually in money; sometimes, in the earlier years, in cloves; and, in 1673, 1679, and 1697, in bonds or in contracts. In the period 1723–74, the prices of shares ranged from 788 per cent (in 1733) to 314 (in 1771).

Another table shows similar figures for the years 1679 to 1774—apparently for the new organization of the company in 1674. The capital is stated at 8,071,135 florins; there were 1,345 shares, of 6,000 florins each. The dividends, during the above period, ranged from 10 per cent to nothing, the yearly average being 1–21/32 per cent; neither these figures nor the prices of shares agree with those of the first table, but the reason for the discrepancy is not obvious. ↑