Note 2 — Chapter XIII · IN THE TRACK OF PLATE-FLEETS AND BUCCANEERS

And when one considers the amount of the treasure thus transported from points as distant as the flanks of Potosi and the auriferous deposits of the distant Pilcomayo, the wonder grows apace. According to the estimates of reliable historians, the amount of gold and silver imported into Spain from her American possessions from 1502 to 1775 was no less than the colossal sum of ten billion dollars.2 Nearly two billions of this treasure were taken from the famous silver mines of Potosi alone. The greater part of the bullion from Peru was shipped by the South Sea to Panama and Nombre de Dios and thence carried to Spain in carefully guarded plate-fleets. But after the pirates and buccaneers became active along the western coast of South America, the ingots of the precious metals, yielded by the mines between Chile and the Caribbean were transported overland and deposited in carefully guarded galleons awaiting them in the harbor of the Queen of the Indies.