Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/409

 ARTICLES OF EXPORTATION. SQS increased wealth and population, it is strictly so. In 1615, it was computed that the consumption of England was fifty thousand pounds, and it is in- creased, in the present state of wealth and luxury, but by 56 per cent., whereas the increase in pep- per is 147 per cent. It would be strange if the case were otherwise, when we advert that, for years back, the actual cost to the consumer, including duty, has been 16 per cent, greater than before the discovery of the route by the Cape of Good Hope, and 55 per cent, more than in the com- mencement of our intercourse with the Indies ! Besides the cloves of the Moluccas, the Isle of Bourbon, and Cayenne, produce cloves originally brought from the Moluccas, the only part of the world to which the clove is indigenous. The cloves of Bourbon, in the market of Bombay, are 0,5 parts less valuable than those of the Moluccas, in China 33? per cent., and, in the London market, 10 per cent. If the clove suffered deterioration, as Rumphius and other good authorities assure us, by being merely translated from the genuine Mo- luccas to Amboyna in their immediate neighbour- hood, it is not to be expected they should bear a change of several degrees of latitude. The exist- ence of the culture in Bourbon or Cayenne rests entirely on the frail foundation of the existence of the Dutch monopoly in the Indies. The differ- ence between the natural price of the clove in the