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Rh coming into Europe freely through Egypt and Venice. In the spring of 1580 the supply in the cities of Holland and Germany was ample. It appeared that Roth could not prevent the contractors for other parts of Europe from shipping to Germany, and the price was falling there; instead of being at fifteen groschen, where the speculators hoped to hold it, it was below twelve. At this point Roth's creditors began to put attachments on his property. All this led the Elector to say: "We fear that there has been a great mistake in Roth's original and still repeated assertion that all the pepper which comes into Europe comes through Lisbon."

In April Roth committed suicide upon hearing of the death of the King of Portugal. It was known that the King of Spain intended to claim the succession, and that the Portuguese would resist; this war and the possibility of a Spanish succession meant ruin to the speculation. The Elector was obliged to send agents in every direction to get possession of the assets of the company, in order to recover his funds. In the end it appears that he escaped without very serious loss; he sold the whole stock to a syndicate of South German merchants, at a price which restored all his capital. After moralizing on his experience he declared: "Inasmuch as I am now weary and sick, and am anxious to pass the remaining time which God vouchsafes me in quiet, I have firmly determined to have done with commerce, whether it would bring me gain or loss." "I have," he says again, "strengthened my head and I will have done with false commerce.

This enterprise was plainly an attempt to exploit a natural monopoly, and to do it by an operation which should embrace the whole world; it was a purely money-making scheme, unrelieved by any social or industrial advantage. It shows how erroneous it is to suppose that