Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/344

 328 INTERCOLONIAL COMMERCE. statement of a Chinese investment for the Japanese market, consisting chiefly of raw and wrought silks, with a few calicoes, amounting to one mil- lion and fifty thousand Spanish dollars, on which the author pledges himself to his employers, the Dutch East India Company, that he will make a clear profit of eight hundred thousand Spanish dollars. * The avidity with which European goods were purchased in our early intercourse with Ja- pan IS shewn by the quantities taken off, not- withstanding: the hio;h cost of the rude manufac- tures of Europe at the time, and the enormous profits charged upon them. The advance on broad cloths has already been stated at 550 per cent. ; quicksilver, according to Captain Saris, was sold at L.ll Sterling per cwt. ; iron at ^9>i^^ Spanish dollars per picul, or L.^, 4s. per cwt. ; steel and ship's cook, to be chief of the factory of Nanga^aki, and who did some mischief in the latter office. The following, from an old English version, are the terms in which he pledges himself: " This aforesaid China Carga- soon being sent yearlie to Japan, I engage myself to my masters, so long as God gives me health, to serve them for nothing, unless I return them in four or five months' time, in good silver, one million eight hundred and fifty thousand royals of eight ; if that be not enough, let them send more, and the gain will be the greater." — Description of Japan p. 107.
 * The author of this proposal was one Leonard Camps.