# The Present State of Peru/4a

PART IV.
COMMERCE.
HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL DISSERTATION ON THE COMMERCE OF PERU.
TO have a just idea of a country, it is necessary to know, analytically, what are the resources which may constitute its felicity. The intellectual faculties, the police, the fashions, the warlike energies even, and the mode of thinking, are elevated or depressed in proportion to the degrees of the industry and opulence of nations. According to the universal system of social and political relations, modern nations cannot flourish without a well-regulated system of commerce. To the perfect comprehension of this branch of knowledge, and to its skilful combination, Holland has been indebted for her riches and support, if we may judge from the disadvantageous site of her steril, and, in a manner, submerged territory. By the same principle she was, in former times, crowned with martial laurels, and enabled, whether in peace or in war, to dictate laws to Europe. Unless for that commerce which is studiously cultivated by all the ranks of her inhabitants. Great Britain would be the slave of the ocean, the empire of which she so proudly maintains. Peru having given a decided, and, indeed, almost exclusive preference to the working of her mines, has not deemed the limits of the commerce in which she is engaged, to be worthy of her profound meditations. Custom, ​imitation, and necessity, bestow a greater or less degree of impulsion on every speculation. Several intelligent merchants have, indeed, made this subject their profound study, and have deduced many excellent results; but the nation has hitherto been deprived of the fruits of their investigations. To avoid the obscurity and confusion which the multiplicity of materials would otherwise occasion, they will be treated separately in this dissertation, in the order and method following.
1st, What are the productions and commodities of the vice-royalty of Peru, for its internal circulation, and commerce of exportation.
2dly, Its external commerce, or importation.
3dly, The causes of its decline. And, 4thly, the remedies which may be applied for its re-establishment.
SECTION I.
Peru, one of the principal parts of South America, comprehends the wide space which extends along the whole of the southern coast, from the river of Guayaquil to the port of Atacama, by a territory of from four to five hundred leagues in length, and fifty in breadth. It has the sea in front, and, at the back, the great Cordillera, and unexplored countries. Its communication is closed to the north, and at the confines of Guayaquil, by forests and inaccessible mountains, which extend to the isthmus of Panama; and, to the south, it is separated from the kingdom of Chile by a desert of a hundred leagues in extent. At the same extremity, it is disunited from the ​provinces of Paraguay, Tucuman, and Buenos-Ayres, by another desert having an extent of four hundred leagues.
Its lands, like all those of the new world, do not present, at the epoch of its discovery, to the view of the attentive and impartial observer, any thing beside a steril, arid, and ungrateful soil, which constantly baffled the expectations of those who cultivated it with the greatest diligence. The earliest Europeans who endeavoured to form an establishment in Peru, were, without exception, tormented by hunger and necessity, and reduced to the sad condition of toiling for the benefit of those by whom they were to be succeeded. This failure was inevitable in an immense uncultivated territory, left to its own fecundity, and abounding alone in that multiplicity of wild plants and productions, which vegetation drew from a soil never corrected by industry.
The native Americans being ignorant of the use of implements of iron, and possessing neither the ox, the horse, nor the ass, it was impossible that the effects of agriculture should be generally extended over a soil covered with forests, and with pools and lakes, the stagnant waters of which exhaled in the atmosphere the principles of putrefaction.
The most ancient and best founded observations afford us the information, that in the centre even of the torrid zone, the earth was so cold at the depth of six or seven inches, that ​the tender seeds which were put into the ground, did not germinate, but were frozen. Accordingly, the indigenous shrubs of America, instead of extending their roots perpendicularly, spread them over the horizontal surface, thus avoiding, as it were instinctively, the internal frost which is destructive to them.
This degree of cold was equally sensible in the impressions of the air, since, on a comparison of the most exact experiments, a difference of twenty degrees may be established between the climate of the old world and that of the new, the heat being as sensible in America at forty degrees of the equator, as it is at sixty in Europe.
This disposition of the atmosphere must necessarily have had an influence on the productions and animals of the new world. Between its tropics there did not exist any of the large quadrupeds; and naturalists, adverting to this circumstance, have suspected that the seeds could not develop themselves in a climate so unfavourable to the principal organizations of the animal kingdom:— a conjecture which derives support from the sensible degeneration suffered by all the animals imported from Europe, insomuch that, at the commencement, serious apprehensions were entertained that their races would be gradually extinguished
​The same alteration was observed in the vegetable productions transplanted in the new world. The wheat, sown with every precaution, was, in general, merely productive of a steril plant, provided with a stem of uncommon thickness. Its culture was therefore in many parts entirely abandoned. The vines did not prosper, although situated in more southern latitudes than in Europe. The coffee is still so inferior to that of Arabia, that even when mixed with Mocha coffee, it is readily detected, both by the taste and view, by the inhabitants of the Levant. It has not any sale in Turkey, unless at a very reduced price. The sugars of the Canaries, China, and Egypt, are decidedly preferred to those of Brazil, although the latter are esteemed the best in America.
Accordingly, the aquatic and succulent plants were those which throve in abundance, in a humid and marshy soil, covered with thick forests, and on that account well adapted to the propagation of the immense number of insects that tormented, at each step, the earliest settlers; since, the seeds of their fecundity being neither dispersed nor destroyed by the impulsion and agitation of the wind, which could not penetrate into those close retreats, they must have been most rapidly and prodigiously multiplied.
About three centuries of cultivation have partly remedied these defects. Constant labour, the cutting down of the trees and bushes, the drying up of the lakes, and the warmth of the habitations, have tempered the constitution of the air. The ​earth has lost its internal cold by the efforts of husbandry, the furrows made by the plough having enabled the rays of the sun to penetrate the soil to a considerable depth; and having been meliorated by the salts of the decayed leaves and plants, the accumulation of which, during a long series of years, has furnished a natural compost, many vegetable productions have shot up, so as to have attained an extraordinary, and even formidable growth, similar to that which has been observed in every mountainous territory subjected to like circumstances. But as industry and labour cannot vary the local situation of countries, that of Peru will be an eternal impediment to the prosperity of agriculture, and to the support and cultivation of its productions.
The great Cordillera which traverses all South America, forms in Peru another smaller one, denominated the Cordillera of the coast, distant from the former from twenty to twenty-five leagues. From the waters it collects, proceed the rivers that empty themselves, by a sudden declination, and with a current of proportionate impetuosity, in the South Sea, in the proximity of which the territory named Valles is situated. It is fertilized as far as it has been practicable to intersect it by canals leading from the rivers.
Deserts of twenty, thirty, and forty leagues in extent, together with arid and sandy plains, separate the vallies from each other, from the port of Atacama to Guayaquil. The rivers are incapable of supplying them with the means of irrigation; and it is impossible to expect this benefit from the waters of heaven, which being cooled by the perpetual snows that cover the summits of the mountains, and heated at the same time by the torrid zone, and their proximity to the ​equator, preserve an equal temperature, which prevents them from being condensed into true clouds. This is certainly the cause of the extraordinary phenomenon of the total absence of thunder and tempests; and on this account it is, that a slight covering of straw, which may absorb the dews and humidity of the night, is considered as a sufficient shelter for the dwellings.
At the back of the cordillera of the coast, and in the intermediate space between it and the more elevated one which is named the royal cordillera, or the cordillera of the Andes, are situated the provinces denominated La Sierra, extending from the jurisdiction of Chachapoyas to the great mineral territory of Potosi. The summits of their lofty mountains, never freed from the immense weight of permanent snow that oppresses them, are the origin and source of the waters which, being precipitated in torrents, have gradually formed the deep and rugged excavations of the earth, denominated, in common with the streams and rivulets that intersedl them, quebradas, and in which are cultivated all the vegetable productions necessary to the sustenance of man. The declivities of these mountains afford a pasture for sheep; but the superior part of them consists of rocky surfaces, either totally bare, or covered by a weak moss.
From this description it may be deduced, that if, according to the most precise calculations, a square league can commodiously maintain eight hundred persons, as is asserted by Marshal Vauban, in his project for a royal tithe, there are in Peru tracts of twenty, and even thirty leagues in extent, which would not repay the industrious efforts of the husbandman with a single herb that would serve as pasture for the smallest ​animal. Nature has, however, compensated this ungrateful sterility, by the abundance of those precious metals, which, having been prodigiously augmented by the discovery of the new world, and received as the token of every description of productions, have entirely changed the ancient system of the commerce of the globe.
In a greater or less degree, the arid mountains of Peru may be considered as an inexhaustible elaboratory of gold and silver. With the exception of the mine of Huantajaya, situated near the port of Iquique, at a distance of two leagues from the sea, the richest mines are comprehended in the most rigid and insalubrious parts of La Sierra, where the absence of plants and shrubs, or, in other words, the infertility itself of the cold soil they occupy, is in general a sure indication which leads to their discovery.
As the Indians were ignorant, not only of the invention of money, but likewise of the astonishing powers of hydraulics applied to machinery, and of the secrets of mineralogy, more especially as they refer to chemistry and subterraneous geometry, the metals they extracted were not of a very considerable amount. The last emperor of Peru could not muster for his ransom, the value of a million and a half of piastres in gold and silver; and the plunder of Cusco was not estimated at a greater sum than ten millions. This was a small quantity for so many years of research and accumulation, but immense for the simple and unique process of collecting, among the sands of the rivers, the minute particles of gold that had been swept ​along by the waters, and the little pure silver that could be dug out of a pit, which, in many instances, did not exceed a fathom in depth.
The most moderate computations of the Spanish writers, among whom may be particularly cited Moncada, Navarrete, and Ustariz, fix at nine thousand millions of piastres the sums which Spain received from America during the two hundred and forty-eight years that followed its conquest, up to that of 1740. The mine of Potosi alone, during the first ninety years of its being worked, produced three hundred and ninety-five millions six hundred and nineteen thousand piastres;—a prodigious extraction, which appears more surprizing, when it is considered that metallurgy had hitherto been treated, not according to the principles and rules of art, but according to the adoption and practice of an ancient and blind usage. Whether this abundant source of riches ought to be encouraged in preference to the other gifts of the earth; or whether the natural productions and primary substances by which agriculture is augmented and extended, should be the objects of an equal, or, perhaps, of a more sedulous attention, is a problem of political economy which may be easily decided by forming an idea of the position, soil, and productions of the Peruvian territory.
The viceroyalty of Peru, which, since various disjunctions, and the erection of that of Buenos Ayres, commences, to the north, at Tumbes, and, to the south, at Vilcanota, the southern extremity of the province of Tinta, running through a space of five hundred itinerary leagues to that confine, and proceeding thence, by the-coast, to the desert of Atacama, a distance of more than six hundred leagues, is divided into ​seven intendencies, which comprehend one thousand three hundred and sixty towns, and the forty-nine departments, as they are now named, to which the seventy-seven jurisdictions that, prior to this establishment, formed its government, have been reduced.
The population does not correspond to so great an extent of territory. According to the highest computation, the number of its inhabitants does not exceed a million; in which amount are included four hundred thousand Indians, the remainder consisting either of whites, or of individuals of the different casts. This estimate, when compared with the exaggerated relations of the enemies of the Spaniards, who have endeavoured to tarnish their laurels by the odious epithet of the exterminators of the Americans, holds out to the view an immense depopulation; but is conformable to the degree of industry and subsistence attained by the nations by whom these territories were anciently occupied.
In reality, it is not possible to believe, that, in the short space of time which elapsed between the year 1513, the epoch of the first expeditions to Peru, and the year 1517, that of the first regular importation of negroes, intended to supply the sensible deficiency of hands requisite for the cultivation of the grounds, so much blood should have been spilled, and so ​many victims sacrificed, for the barbarous and insensate pleasure of destroying, and committing crimes. It being at the same time certain that the territories into which the Spanish armies did not penetrate, constitute the most complete wastes, insomuch that throughout an extent of many leagues, not the slightest trace of a human dwelling is to be found; and that, under the government of the Yncas, there was not, in all Peru, with the exception of Cuzco, a single place which could have formed a city; a regard to justice requires that the false ideas which have been entertained relatively to the ruin and destruction of America, should be laid aside.
This destruction would have been horrible, if the calculation which makes its aborigines amount to three hundred millions, were not destitute of all probability. The absurd author, however, of this contemptible estimate, has not been supported in his extravagances. Those who come the nearest to him, do not rate the population of America, running from south to north, with all the islands in its dependency, at more than a hundred millions; and, with this notable deduction even, they depart considerably from the truth, since the political arithmeticians who have treated the subject with impartiality, allow forty millions only to the whole of the new world, at the time of its discovery.
The true causes of the depopulation of America, taken in the general sense which has already been expressed, are to be traced in the kind of life to which its primitive inhabitants were confined. Depending principally on hunting and fishing, their days were spent in a violent agitation, at the same ​time that they needed certain aliments better calculated for the propagation of the human species. The wars which were carried on, with scarcely an interval of repose, between the nations that peopled the country; the sacrifices of human victims to.which several of them were accustomed; the crimes which were very common in others; and, lastly, the insalubrity of the climate, more especially in the islands and provinces bordering on the line, covered with forests and lakes, which rendered the atmosphere more humid than in any other part of the earth; all these principles concurred to prevent the generations from multiplying. The ignorance of the useful arts, of such as are essential to the conveniences of life, in which the American lived, contributed also to this effect.
This last deficiency was supplied by the Indians of Peru, according to the imperfect state of their acquirements. As they knew not how to reckon up to twenty, without employing such material signs as could be substituted to the idea of quantities, they had recourse to the quipos, the combination, knots, and colours of which served them instead of arithmetic, Jhistory, and painting. The celebrated ruins of the fortress of Cuzco point out to us the extent to which the force of man can be carried, when unassisted by the knowledge of the equilibrium, and by machinery. These fragments demonstrate, that, in the time of the Yncas, the Peruvians constructed their buildings with solidity and ostentation. To pile together stones of a prodigious size, by the means of a great number ​of men, was, however, the utmost effort of their architecture; and was admirable for a nation destitute of all knowledge of the mathematical science.
It has been observed by the celebrated Linnæus, that in all uncultivated and savage countries, the rivers are wider and more extensive, in proportion to the mass of their waters, than in the regions inhabited by civilized nations. The justness of this observation is demonstrated in Peru, where it is continually necessary to cross rivulets and torrents, which embarras, in a very extraordinary degree, the intercourse and communication, in a country where there are few bridges to facilitate the transport of merchandize. Those which the native inhabitants needed, were formed without arches, of the construction of which they were ignorant. The rafts and bridges of cord supply, however, in a certain degree, this deficiency, which could not be felt by a nation whose sole necessity was that of conveying its tribute to Cuzco.
The above-mentioned causes, united to the vices inherent in the soil, have prevented in Peru the progress of agriculture, it having been recognized from the commencement, that in proportion as she has been favoured by the production of metals of every description, she has, on that very account, been condemned to an ungrateful sterility, relatively to the other gifts of Nature. The history of the Yncas contains the following observation: "There are but few good lands in Peru: in the territory surrounding Callao, for an extent of more than a hundred and fifty leagues in circumference, the maize docs not spring up, on account of the excessive cold. In the vailies, the scarcity of water is an insurmountable obstacle to vegetation; and there are, besides, more than seven hundred leagues of a parched and arid coast, where it never rains, and ​through which not a single river directs its course." Thus spoke, very much to the purpose, one of the early historians of Peru.
Time, the supreme arbiter of speculations and possibilities, has established the solidity of this observation, Peru not having been susceptible, in the lapse of nearly three centuries, of any augmentation in the amount of her productions. They are, however, proportioned to the number of her inhabitants, the sole consumers, between whom a constant intercourse is maintained, the provinces supplying each other reciprocally with the particular articles of consumption, which are superabundant in some, and defective in others. This commerce, which is carried on both by sea and land, left a balance, at the close of the year 1789, in favour of the viceroyalty of Lima, of seven hundred and twenty-five thousand one hundred and ninety-two piastres:—an estimate which will serve, with a trifling variation, for the other years.
The profits which that viceroyalty derived, in the course of the above year, from the introduction of its productions into the provinces of Buenos-Ayres, exceeded a million of piastres. It cannot be said to carry on any maritime trade with these provinces, although the circumstances of the war of 1779 occasioned two or three vessels to be sent from Callao to Montevideo, partly laden with cacao and cinchona, destined to be shipped on board vessels bound to Cadiz; and partly with sugar, honey, and cloths of the fabric of the country, for the consumption of the interior. It is indeed true, that in the bark which sails occasionally from the port of Montevideo to that of Arica, to supply the mines situated in that government with quicksilver, it has been customary to ship tallow, and the ​herb of Paraguay; but in such inconsiderable quantities as not to derange the preceding estimate.
But the inland commerce of the productions introduced by the departments of the intendencies of Arequipa and Cuzco, into the above jurisdiction of Buenos-Ayres, by the intermediate stations of the cities of Potosi and Chuquisaca, amounted to the sum of two millions thirty-four thousand nine hundred and eighty piastres. Of this sum one million three hundred thousand four hundred and seventy-five piastres, belonged to the provinces of Arequipa, for brandies; wines of the growth of the vallies of Locumba, Mages, and Victor; maize; wheaten flour; cotton; oil; pimento; sugars; and other productions of less import. The remainder, amounting to seven hundred and thirty-five thousand five hundred and five piastres, belonged to the intendency of Cuzco, for baizes, and other woollen manufactures; sugars; grains, &c. In return, the intendency of Arequipa received from Buenos-Ayres the amount of three hundred and eighty-nine thousand two hundred and sixty piastres, in cattle, dried flesh, wool, tallow, cocoa, copper, tin, &c. That of Cuzco received from the above jurisdiction the value of four hundred and seventyfive thousand five hundred and thirty piastres, in mules; sheep; black cattle; hides; wax; soap; tallow; baizes, &c. The result, in favour of the intendency of Arequipa, was nine hundred and eleven thousand two hundred and fifteen ​piastres; and, in favour of that of Cuzco, two hundred and fifty-eight thousand nine hundred and seventy-five piastres. By this intercourse, more than a million of piastres, coined in the mint of Potosi, are annually introduced, in aid of the circulating specie, into the viceroyalty of Lima.
As the provinces of La Sierra annexed to Buenos Ayres, are the most abundant in mines, and on that account the most populous and steril, it is necessary that the consumers, whose numbers are very considerable, should be supplied with the natural productions of the coast, the only part of the territory of Peru where the lands can be profitably cultivated. Arequipa is, by its proximity, the source of these supplies; and Cuzco administers, by its manufactories, the baizes, and other articles of clothing which the population demands. It ought, however, to be observed, that the augmented introduction of the manufadtures of Europe, by the river of La Plata, has latterly occasioned this branch of commerce to decline in a sensible manner, the camlets, fustians, second cloths, &c. imported by this channel, having been sold at little more than their prime cost, so as to have ruined, by their competition, the baizes and stuffs of the manufacture of the country.
With the other governments the commerce is maritime, and is carried on from the port of Callao, in vessels of different classes, chiefly belonging to inhabitants of Lima. The above port is the rendezvous of from sixteen to seventeen thousand tons of shipping, five thousand tons of which are reserved ​for this trade, or, in other words, for the navigation of the south sea, including Goatemala, and Panama. The balance is invariably, in a greater or less degree, against the viceroyalty of Lima, a certain portion of the specie circulating in which, is absorbed by this intercourse.
It is principally maintained with the kingdom of Chile, by its three ports of Conception, Valparaiso, and Coquimbo. The articles exported from Lima, consist chiefly of cloths, either of the manufacture of the country, or of Quito; sugars; salt; and rice. In return, that viceroyalty receives an abundant supply of corn; together with tallow; copper; hides; cordage, &c. The exports amounted, in 1789, to four hundred and fifty-eight thousand three hundred and seventeen piastres; and the imports to six hundred and twenty-nine thousand eight hundred piastres; leaving a balance in favour of Quito, of a hundred and seventy- one thousand four hundred and eighty-three piastres.
The cause of so very considerable an advantage to that government, may be traced to the sterility produced in the vallies adjacent to Lima, by the dreadful earthquake which occurred towards the close of the seventeenth century. For several succeeding years the crops failed; and the plains having been rendered utterly unfit for the cultivation of wheat, its ​price rose to thirty piastres the bushel. From this public calamity originated the present traffic in corn; the ships engaged in the transport of which, were before laden with commodities of a very different nature.
It would appear that the commerce of corn, for the consumption of the Peruvian capital, absorbs nearly the one half of the gross amount of the imports. In 1789, two hundred and eighteen thousand bushels of wheat, of the value of two hundred and seventy-five thousand piastres, were imported from Chile. Its other productions, which are less plentiful, and not of so prime a necessity, would constantly have rendered that kingdom dependent on Peru. Those forwarded to the ports of Iquique, Arica, Ilo, and Aranta, commonly named the intermediate ports, to supply the provinces of Arequipa, and those, contiguous to them, belonging to the jurisdiction of Buenos-Ayres, do not exceed the amount of forty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-five piastres. From this estimation is to be deducted the value of the herb of Paraguay, which is not a production of Chile, but is brought thither by two vessels that sail annually from the port of Pacasmayo, chiefly laden with tobacco on the account of his Catholic Majesty.
Although the island of Chiloe is annexed to the viceroyalty of Lima, its proximity to the kingdom of Chile has occasioned it to be considered, but improperly, as constituting, in a commercial point of view, a part of that government. The amount of its commerce cannot be precisely ascertained, its productions being blended with others that are foreign to its soil. The exports from this island amounted, in 1789, to thirty thousand piastres; and the imports to fifty-one thousand ​two hundred. There was consequently a balance of twenty-one thousand two hundred piastres against the viceroyalty of Lima.
The only intercourse kept up with Valdivia, which has not any exports, is by two vessels that sail thither annually, one from the port of Valparayso with provisions, and the other from Lima, with pay for the troops composing the garrison. This entire want of commerce is not owing to a sterility of soil. At a little distance from the city, towards the Cordillera, there are vallies which abound in every description of grains and produdtions. The mountains are covered by holm oaks, and other trees, which are in great request for building; and the gold mines of this distr16l have been cited for the fine quality of their metal, the standard of which, at the time they were worked, was never beneath twenty-three carats. The population having, however, been destroyed by the neighbouring Indians, at the close of the seventeenth century, and not exceeding, at the present time, two thousand souls, the condition of Valdivia has become truly deplorable. With a view to the re-establishment of its commerce, it has been recently declared a free port, subject to the presidency of Chile.
The ports of Realexo and Sonsonate are the only ones which are frequented for the exportation from Callao to the coast of the southern extremity of the kingdom of Goatemala. The amount of the exports, which consist of furs; wines; brandies; oil, &c. is so very inconsiderable, that in 1789 it did not exceed twenty-eight thousand three hundred and fifty piastres. On the other side, the importation, from the above ports, of indigo; pimento; pitch; cedar planks; brazil ​wood; &c. amounted to a hundred and twenty-four thousand five hundred piastres; leaving a balance against the viceroyalty of Lima, of ninety-six thousand one hundred and fifty piastres. The remission of the duties on the imports and exports, -lately conceded to the ports of Omoa and Truxillo, situated in the northern part of the above kingdom of Goatemala, will necessarily produce a change in the above commerce.
The trade carried on by the viceroyalty of Lima with that of Santa Fé, is partly inland, by the province of Quito, and partly maritime, by the ports of Guayaquil and Panama. The exports from Callao to the harbour of Puna, and river of Guayaquil, consist of wines of the growth of Coquimbo, Nasca, Pisco, and Conception; brandies; sugars; flour; copper, &c. Those from the above port to that of Panama, chiefly consist of cloth of the manufactory of the country; wool; and flour. The principal articles sent overland to the intermediate ports of Paita, Pacasmayo, Truxillo, &c. and thence forwarded to those of Guayaquil and Panama, are cotton; tanned hides; shoes; hats; baizes; and sugars. The exports of the year 1789 were, in their total amount, of the value of a hundred and twenty-eight thousand two hundred and ninety-five piastres.
The imports from the viceroyalty of Santa Fé into that of Lima, by the ports of Guayaquil and Panama, to Callao and the intermediate ports of Paita and Truxillo, consisting of cacao; coffee; wax; and other productions, were, in that year, of the value of two hundred and eighty-four thousand four hundred and sixty piastres. There was therefore a ​balance against Lima of one hundred and fifty-six thousand one hundred and sixty-four piastres.
Such is the sketch of the active commerce of Peru, and of the natural productions of its soil. It demonstrates the abject condition to which its traffic has been reduced; since, with the exception of the advantages it derives from several of the provinces of Buenos-Ayres, it is not able to balance, by its productions, those it draws from the other departments of America, for its own consumption and use. This subject will be best illustrated by a general recapitulation of what has been exposed above.
To this sum is to be added the produce of the maritime freights, which are deducted, in the first instance, from the amount of the sales, and which belong exclusively to individuals residing within the jurisdiction of Lima, the sole proprietors of the trading vessels, as well as of the mules for inland conveyance. The commission of sale and delivery, on the productions of the country, is regulated at four per cent.; but on the purchases and recoveries for the towns situated in the interior, as well as on the remittances made by them, the commission is not charged, it being the general custom to perform gratuitously these offices of trust and friendship. The beneficial practice of insurances, by which the merchant is exempted from the risks of the ocean, and is not exposed to the contingencies of an entire loss of his capital and fortune, is not known. Indeed, the very inconsiderable number of vessels trading in the South Sea, could not support this combination of industry, established with a view to the gains arising out of the repetition of the risks, and the diversity of the destinations.
​The preceding calculation is but little augmented by the small quantity of vicuna wool, the annual exports of which may be estimated at ten thousand piastres; and by the two thousand quintals of cinchona, or Peruvian bark, of Piura, Chachapoyas, and Huambos, which, at the low price of twenty-five piastres the quintal, amount to fifty thousand piastres. A peculiar species of the latter article has been recently procured from the mountainous provinces of Huanuco, Tarma, and Xauja; but in such inconsiderable portions as not to merit a commercial consideration. As its superior quality has given it a decided preference over all the other kinds which have been discovered in America, it is to be hoped that abundant supplies of it will hereafter be obtained. It is known by the name of roxa, or red bark; and differs essentially from the other varieties, which bear the appellation of arrollada, or quilled bark.
The national laws strongly recommend the introduction and cultivation of the wool trade, which cannot, however, be advantageously prosecuted in Peru. In addition to the expences of cleansing, carding, and combing, which are rated very high, the charges of its transport by land and sea are so considerable, that it does not hold out any ultimate advantage to the exporter. The arroba of wool, of twenty-five pounds weight, on the spot where it is sheared, is estimated at a piastre; its freight from the provinces of Xauja and Pasco to Lima, at four reals; the expences of cleansing, &c. at two piastres; and those of its transport to Cadiz, at three piastres. As it is there subject to a heavy duty of three piastres three reals, independently of the commission, risk, and ​terest on the capital embarked, it cannot enter into a competition with the wools of Segovia and Castille, of a superior quality, which may be brought to market at as low a rate. From the above details it may be collected, that the provinces, of Peru have to seek riches in the bosom, and not on the superficies of the earth. All those that the mineral kingdom can produce, are to be found in abundance within their confines: alum, copperas, and ochre; crystal, basaltes, and sulphur; the cope, a species of black naphtha, as hard as asphaltum, which, although it has a defect easily to be corrected by blending it with other substances, that of burning the cordage, is employed for maritime purposes instead of pitch; copper, lead, and iron; and lastly, and pre-eminently, gold and silver, the general instruments of equation in every description of commerce.
It is recorded by Llano Zapata, in the discourse prefixed to his Memoirs of South America, that at the commencement of the seventeenth century, eighteen thousand spots of mineral territory, in which were comprehended one hundred and twenty thousand mines, were registered in Peru. Notwithstanding this object of commerce and industry has declined sensibly, for reasons which will hereafter be adduced, the mines, as they are at present worked, yield annually about four millions and a half of piastres in gold and silver, without reckoning the portion of these metals employed in the manufacture of articles of convenience and luxury. As metals, gold and silver have an intrinsic value; the nations which possess them ought accordingly to watch over their increase, in the same way as the husbandman attends to the propagation of his seeds. They neither feed nor clothe; ​insomuch that, if all commerce and intercourse should, by an extraordinary casualty, be at an end, the country which abounds in gold and silver alone, would be exposed to the calamities of wretchedness and want. But as, in the natural and established order of causes and effects, they are followed by the commodities essential to the existence of man, their proprietors will constantly reap advantages proportioned to their more or less flourishing condition. They are a kind of river, on which all things useful and necessary are navigated and transported; commerce being nothing more than the well-rope, without which the water enclosed in the depth beneath would not be of any utility. To proportion to the extent of the latter, the amount of the specie which should be drawn from the mines, belongs to the government; and on this head a competent idea cannot be formed, unless the annual importation into Peru be first considered.
SECTION II.
As the balance of trade varies in proportion to the abundance or scarcity, it is impossible to calculate precisely the annual introduction, consumption, and value of the effects; at the same time that the reports of the custom-houses have the defect of not being accompanied by the prices of the merchandizes; that being a mystery reserved for the secret observations of the merchant, on which he is to found his meditated and allowed profits, and which could not be exacted by the supreme authority, without an odious and unnecessary verification that would be destructive of the freedom of the contracts.
The calculation formed on the number of the consumers ​would approach as nearly as possible to the real entries, if the different classes of the inhabitants of Peru did not observe a total difference in the articles of their dress. That of the individuals destined to cultivate the plains, and to perform the other useful labours in the different provinces, consists entirely of the cloths and other manufactures of the country. The rule the best adapted to obtain these useful data, and to preserve that nice balance which ought to be maintained between the introduction and the expenditure, is to proportion the imports to the effective value of the territorial productions. If the former be less than the country requires, its inhabitants are compelled to suffer all the disastrous effects of a scarcity. If they exceed their consumption, the importers are subjected to the losses inseparable from an overwhelming abundance, which, by a natural principle, lowers the estimation and price of every commercial effect.
This constant axiom, which is alike supported by theory and practice, appears to be clearly demonstrated by the present state of the commerce of the viceroyalty of Peru. Its annual produce in gold, silver, and other effects, as has been already shewn, amounts to little more than five millions of piastres. Now, in the course of a year, reckoning from the month of September 1785, sixteen vessels anchored in the port of Callao, with cargoes estimated at twenty-four millions.
This excessive importation, together with those of the subsequent years, pretty nearly to the same amount, and the facility of supplying the provinces situated in the interior by the river of La Plata, have occasioned a general clamour to be raised on the subject of the decline of commerce, its . ​embarrassments, and the scarcity of the specie which should bestow on it vigour and activity; a persuasion being entertained, that these pernicious results are precisely the effect of a free trade.
These vague and unfounded complaints, which confine the view solely to the particular interest of the merchant, instead of extending it to the advantages produced by the different compensations of all the united objects, are to be condemned as contrary to the common felicity and general welfare of the nation.
Foreigners, aware of the advantages which may result from the new regulations, have had recourse to subtleties and sophisms, to bring into discredit this very useful system. Spain, they observe, being but thinly peopled in proportion to her territory, ought not to augment the facilities and resources of the sea-ports, which, by embracing profits at once more prompt, more secure, and more multiplied, cherish commerce, to the prejudice both of agriculture, and of the population. Cadiz, on account of its limited space, being incapable of receiving and maintaining a greater number of inhabitants, the productions were sent thither for traffic, but the families remained on their possessions: hence resulted the double utility of the funds being first circulated, and afterwards remitted into the interior, for the support of the lands on which the proprietors resided. In that port, the number of vessels trading to the Indies is infinitely greater than in any other; consequently, there is a greater opportunity to divide the risks, a necessary stimulus to the merchant, who cannot consent to expose the whole of his property to one fortuitous event. The different speculations, relatively to the scarcity or abundance of certain articles of commerce, which it is ​easy to found on the remittances and orders from America, with a view to avoid the losses resulting from the market being imprudently overstocked, cannot be formed at the very considerable distance of some of the ports from the others. And, lastly, the moderate prices at which foreign commodities were to be procured, in consequence of their being colle6ted in a single place, will be greatly enhanced by the new system: by dispersing them in various directions, it will not allow them to maintain the just value to which a competition had reduced them.
If it were the object of this dissertation to justify the above system, it would not be difficult to dissipate these vain terrors, the offspring of a blind regard to private profit, by establishing the advantages the nation derives from the unlimited freedom of commerce. But as the reflections which arise out of this subject, are necessarily confined to the effects produced on the viceroyalty of Lima, it may be asserted without hesitation, on the testimony of the most exact comparative calculations, between the present condition and that of former times that the mischiefs which have been so much lamented, and so often repeated, do not originate in this source.
Spain, in the illusion of her prosperity, and with the chimerical design to appropriate to herself the riches and productions of the new world she had just acquired, not only prohibited all trade with foreign countries, but likewise threw obstacles in the way of the traffic the natives might establish among themselves. Although, by the edict of Charles I. dated in 1529, the commerce of the Indies was to be divided between the different ports of the ocean and Mediterranean, to the end that its advantages should be circulated through all ​the provinces of the crown of Castille, the severest penalties were enabled to oblige the homeward-bound vessels to proceed directly to Seville. By this restriction the effect of the general permission was annulled.
The system of the galleons was chosen as the most secure for the supply of the above provinces, and, by the scale of prices drawn up by the commercial deputies of Spain and Peru, established the just value of the merchandizes and effects. The loss of Jamaica in the middle of the seventeenth century, augmented very considerably the contraband trade. The pillage of Panama, in 1670, by the Englishman, John Morgan, which rendered it necessary to with-hold the capitals, and to delay the remittances until notice should be sent of the arrival of the ships at Carthagena; together with the privilege granted to a company of English merchants in 1713, in conformity to a preliminary article of the treaty of Utrecht, to supply Peru with negroes for the space of thirty years, oppressed to such a degree, by the competition which was set up, these celebrated marts, that after the oneholden in 1737, it was impossible to continue the above system for a longer time. In its stead was substituted the commerce by Cape Horn, in detached ships, without any regulation either as to their number, or the time of their sailing, the permission to employ them in this trade being a special favour, subject, however, to an infinity of delays, and of perplexing formalities, established on the pretext of preventing smuggling, which, combined with the very high rate of tonnage, impeded the success of every enterprize. At length came the new regulation of a free trade. It was ​promulgated in the month of October 1778; but could not be carried into general effect until the year 1783, on the conclusion of the peace. As, in the first fervour of novelty, the speculations were multiplied to the extraordinary degree already noticed, the impracticability of the sales and returns occasioned the failure of many merchants, who were obliged to stop payment.
These mischiefs were not, however, precisely owing to a free trade; but arose in a great measure from the defect of not combining, studiously and methodically, the enterprizes with the results that were to be expected from them. As the profession of the merchant depends on the caprices of men, and on a thousand complicated incidents, it requires, to be successfully pursued, a superior spirit of vigilance and attention, such as was certainly not displayed in Peru in the years 1785 and 1786, when the augmented number of importers surcharged with merchandizes, of the value of twenty-four millions of piastres, a kingdom which consumes annually the amount of four only. This excess occasioned so great a stagnation, as entirely to interrupt the course of trade.
To undertake to regulate it by particular laws, and by a fixed number of tons of shippings is to oppose tea transitory evil a constant destruction. Hold out to all the subjects of a state the hope of acquiring, as well as of enjoying the fruit of their labour; and their reverses will render them more circumspect; in the means they will embrace. Agriculture and commerce are, in common with all the arts, advanced by two principles, namely, interest and liberty. The direction of these principles belongs to the government; but the citizen being once placed in the road which leads to the common ​city, ought to be left to follow up his pursuits tranquilly and without molestation. When, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, the impossibility to which Spain was reduced, of supplying her colonies, stimulated the merchants of St. Maloes to establish a trade with South America by Cape Horn, the universal emulation inspired by the prospect of gain, gave rise to a competition which rendered the merchandizes of little or no value. In some instances, indeed, where a miarket could not be found for them at any price, the super-cargoes were obliged to commit them to the flames. By this example, however, the commercial equilibrium was soon re-established.
If an exact comparison be made between the progress of commerce in the times anterior to the permission, and its present state and influence, it will be seen that Peru has constantly tended to preserve the same ratio between her imports and exports; and that their augmentation, by the means of the free trade, has distributed the advantages which were before confined to a few hands, among a greater number of individuals, to the sensible benefit, both of the nation at large, and of the public treasury.
It is unnecessary to compare the present system with the epoch of the armadas, or galleons, its advantages being too clear and obvious to need the slightest elucidation. The abolition of the latter must have been a constant source of anxiety to foreign nations, thus deprived of the benefits of supplying Peru, and of extracting, by a destructive importation, the greater part of her treasures.
The burthen of the galleons, and of the ships by which they were followed, was regulated, in the seventeenth century, ​at fifteen thousand tons, for the consumption of Peru and Terra Firma. In 1740 it was reduced to two thousand, the contraband trade having absorbed thirteen thousand tons. The facility with which the opulent merchant was enabled to engross any particular branch of commerce, rendered him the arbiter of the price, which he augmented to a degree that necessity alone was allowed to regulate. For a quintal of iron a hundred piastres were exacted; for the same quantity of steel, a hundred and fifty; and this monstrous disproportion was observed relatively to the other produ6tions and efFe6ts. The returns to the mother country were proportionate to the small share of influence and interest she had in this commerce: in the space of twenty-six years, from 1714 to 1739, thirty-four millions only of piastres were registered. During the whole of that time, not more than four armadas put to sea; although the regulation imported, that the galleons should be dispatched annually, or within the limit of eighteen months, at the latest. This delay became a new stimulus to the revival of the contraband trade; and the forty-third article of the assiento, by which the English were allowed to send annually a ship of five hundred tons to trade with the Spanish colonies, became so prejudicial to Peru, that a remedy was scarcely to be expected.
It was partly found, in 1748, by the permission to navigate, by Cape Horn, in vessels named register ships, by which the relations with the mother country became more direct and frequent, at the same time that the destructive combinations of foreigners, established on the slow and methodical sailing of the galleons, were frustrated by the uncertainty of the departure, as well as of the number of the ships. Since that time, ​whatever Europe can furnish of the useful, the tasteful, and the commodious, has been insensibly diffused throughout Peru. The prices are so much diminished, that a family may now be clad with the finest cloths, for a sum which would not before have procured the coarsest manufactures of the country. The population of Lima has augmented to fifty-two thousand souls; whereas, in 1749, forty-five thousand inhabitants were not to be numbered. The working of the mines, and the refining of the ores, have derived encouragement and aid from the low rate of interest paid by the miner, and from the increased number of those who have capitals to advance. In the royal mint of Lima, four hundred thousand marks of silver are annually wrought, instead of two hundred and thirty thousand, which, on a fair average estimate, were coined in the antecedent times referred to. Lastly, the returns to the mother country have been quadrupled, in proportion to the produce of the kingdom, they having been of the annual amount of four millions and a half of piastres in silver, and of about a million in merchandizes, exclusive of what has been registered by Buenos-Ayres and Carthagena, which then constituted a part of the lading of the armada, but does not now enter into the accounts of the exports of the jurisdiction of Lima.
These benefits have been acquired gradually. When the first register ships anchored in the port of Callao, the price of insurances at Cadiz was twenty per cent. On the following year it fell to fifteen; and declined gradually, until, in 1790, it was at the very reduced rate of two per cent. This reduction is an evident and infallible proof of the advantages of the present system. To know whether a country be rich or poor, and to ascertain the degree of protection afforded to commerce, ​one question only is to be asked: at what rate is specie to be procured? If it be high, trade declines for want of a due encouragement, and of the active intercourse by which it should be sustained. If, on the other hand, it be low, the circulation is animated and revived by the extension of its limits, and by the distribution of the funds among the most useful and industrious part of the nation. Spain, which, in 1500, paid an interest of ten per cent. reduced it, in 1550, to four per cent. by the rapid and excessive augmentation her treasury acquired by the discovery of America.
As the merchant does not contract a debt, unless to acquire by his industry, a substantial profit; and as the lender does not advance his money, unless to appropriate to himself a part of this advantage; it is certain that the interest is a pension imposed by the rich possessor on the active trader. Consequently, in a state, the prosperity and opulence of which depend on the augmented number and labour of men, it is important that this burthen should be light.
The superiority and advantages of a state are founded on the extension and combination of its commerce. When the interest of money is reduced, more persons are enabled to trade, because there are more lenders, and because the consumption is augmented by the opportunity of selling at a more commodious price. The low rate of interest, and the moderate value of the merchandizes, are naturally derived from an extended commerce, which, by the production of great funds, diminishes the interest and the gains. There being such an intimate connexion between the causes and effects, the interest of money may be considered as the true barometer of the prosperity of a kingdom; as the sure token of the activity of ​its traffic; and the most certain proof of the rapid circulation of wealth.
The amount of the specie existing in a kingdom, is not a certain indication of the state of its commerce, which may flourish in an extraordinary degree, without its produce being equalled by the former. England, which, in 1783, raised the value of her manufactures to fifty-one millions sterling, and, in 1784, to sixty-eight millions thirty thousand pounds, did not reckon, comprehending Scotland, more than thirty millions of circulating specie in gold, and seven in silver. Consequently, notwithstanding the free trade may, as has been alleged, have diminished the amount of the specie circulating in the viceroyalty of Peru, it does not follow from this principle, that it has been the cause of the decay of its commerce.
Hume observes, in his Political Essays, that there is not a more infallible mean of reducing the value of specie, than the establishment of banks, public funds, and paper credit. If the latter be multiplied in abundance, the other effects will become proportionally scarce; and in this manner, a great part of the precious metals will find their way abroad. For, seeing that paper has not any estimation out of the country which bestows on it a nominal value, it will not enter into the combinations of the foreign merchant, whose aim will be to extract the specie, which is alike precious in every kingdom.
These reflections have been confirmed by experience. Before the introduction of paper credit into the Anglo-American colonies, gold and silver were in abundant circulation, but as soon as that medium was established, the above metals ​most entirely disappeared. The small sum of specie which circulates in England, in proportion to her very extensive commerce, is accounted for, by political writers, on the principle of the multiplicity of bills, notes, and other similar effects; while the advantages which France derives, on that score, are ascribed to the scarcity of these circulating media.
That of copper money, the introduction of which was attempted in South America in 1542, but which was entirely abandoned on account of the resistance of the natives, who, in less than a year, contemptuously buried in the rivers and lakes more than a million of piastres of that metallic currency, cannot but be prejudicial in a country, the principal produce of which consists of gold and silver, and which ought to foster the idea, however illusory it may be, that the true and efficient riches of the state reside in their abundance. To debase them by a competition with another token, would be to abate the ardour of those who are engaged in extracting them from the mines; and would revive the just grounds on which the erroneous policy of Spain was condemned, when she prohibited tissues of gold and silver.
The citizens of Genoa were interdicted, on severe penalties, the use of services of china, but were free to substitute in their stead those of gold and silver. In recurring to this measure, the government of that republic wisely foresaw that, by lowering the estimation of these metals, the state would by degrees be exhausted of them, and reduced to a real indigence, relatively to the other nations which did not receive in payment the paper and copper tendered to them as specie.
​These evident reflections with respect to other kingdoms, bear still more forcibly on South America, where silver may be regarded as the principal produce. In the same way as it would be absurd in an agricultural nation, to endeavour to augment industry and the productions of the soil, by locking up the seeds in the granaries, and introducing, as equivalents, others calculated for the subsistence of man; so is it a palpable error to suppose, that the introduction of a copper or paper currency, would be useful to Spain and her possessions in America.
What has been done, with a view to remedy the inconveniences arising from the want of small coins, to give vigour to the circulation, and to extend it to each of the classes and quantities, has been better contrived, by the new expedient of the quartillos, or fourths of reals, which are now coining. Their employment will constantly maintain that precious metal in its real estimation, at the same time that the returns will become more rapid and extensive, by the introduction of tokens representing the smaller values.
The idea entertained by several writers, that commerce is produced and supported by scarcity, is erroneous. If, for instance, by several unexpected events, there should be a destruction of the one half of the productions of both hemispheres, it is certain that the necessities would be immense; but it is equally so, that trade would be greatly diminished. In the viceroyalty of Lima, silver appears to be in a less proportion, because it does not come in contact with the articles which are not marketable, and which remain stagnant, without sale or price, because the true principle of the vendible estimation and value does not reside in the numerical and ​abstract proportion of the buyers and sellers, but in the greater or less quantity of the productions. The number of importers has been augmented in a very considerable degree; but the consumption having been invariably the same, the competition they have entered into has obliged them to endeavour to lighten themselves, at a loss even, of a heavy burthen which they could not transport elsewhere. Let the importations be once brought to the level of the annual produce, and there will cease to be any complaints against the useful and profitable system of a free trade.
The loud clamours which have been raised against the Company of the Philippine Islands, and against the deputation of the Five Corporations of Madrid, have been founded on a persuasion that they have been destructive of the commerce of private individuals, and have absorbed all that the viceroyalty can maintain, by the excessive importations of their immense funds, and by the facility with which they can sell at a more commodious and reduced price.
It is agreed on all hands, that the advancement and prosperity of great companies have in general been attended by the destruction of private trade, which finds it impracticable to enter into a competition with such powerful bodies, capable of undertaking the greatest enterprizes, and of supporting the repeated losses to which commerce is subjected by its variations. It is also true, that several of these companies have resorted to the odious, unjust, and arbitrary proceeding, of lowering the sales to such a degree as to occasion a sacrifice of a part of the capital advanced on the purchases. The private merchant has thus been defeated in his intention of trading to the same destination; and, although the countries in which this has been ​practised, may have been momentarily benefited by the cheapness of the merchandizes, they have been deprived of the constant advantages of the competition.
If this criminal procedure cannot be suspected in the companies of which we have spoken, on account of the patriotic zeal with which they have concurred towards the national felicity, their having entered into the common traffic of the kingdom without any distinct privileges, and without any variation either of the cargoes or duties, is a security against any apprehension of their fatal preponderance.
SECTION III.
"Those by whom we are governed," observes a profound politician, "have merely the time to govern us:" thus implying, that their attention being drawn to the immense and complicated objects of rule and authority, it is not possible that it should be extended to the different relations and circumstances which enter into the organization of each particular province. Notwithstanding, therefore, the destructive principles which have hastened the decline of Peru, may be confidently disclosed, and pointed out with certainty it is not surprizing that, having been introduced under the description of public benefits, they have, on that specious pretext, been continued without remission.
As a meet remedy for the present abject state of Peru, and as the true source of an infallible prosperity, the encouragement of agriculture, and the most vigilant endeavours to augment the productions of the soil, have been strenuously recommended. This proposition, repeated by inexperience, ​and assented to without investigation, must yield to a discussion of the invincible obstacles which prevent an unwearied application to agricultural pursuits.
From the very nature of the soil, climate, and situation of the greater part of the lands, they cannot be ploughed with any prospect of advantage. Either they are immense parched deserts, without any irrigation or refreshing moisture, if we except the small portion of humidity they receive from heaven; or frozen mountains, which, being condemned to a perpetual rigidity, are not susceptible of such a degree of culture as would hold out the reasonable hope of a crop.
There is no doubt but that the produce might be augmented to a certain degree by the melioration of the lands, and the constant ploughing of the extensive plains; since there are many of them to which the water collected by the rains might, as well as the currents of the large rivers, be directed, at the same time that the vices inherent in the soil might be corrected by artificial means.
By such resources the Spanish provinces of Biscay and Guipuzcoa, naturally steril, have been rendered so fertile as to yield, on the greater part of their grounds, two distinct annual crops. It is owing to the same cause that Catalonia, although a mountainous territory, is represented as one of the best cultivated provinces of Spain. It would not be expedient, however, to undertake works of such an immense expence in Peru, seeing that they would not repay the funds indispensable to their execution, and would not elevate the viceroyalty to a great pitch of prosperity.
It consists in the augmented number of vassals, and not in the excessive extent of territory. By men the lands are ​vated, and the commerce and circulation of their produce exercised and facilitated; it being evident that a depopulated state cannot make any successful progress in these branches of industry. But, in the same way as every kingdom has need of agriculture for its subsistence, so has every increase, to be sustained, need of a population either proper or extraneous, that is, of purchasers who may secure to the cultivator the enjoyment of the fruit of his labours. Where there is, therefore, a deficiency of hands for the rural operations, and of mouths for the consumption, encouragement is void; insomuch, that abundance itself, far from constituting riches, becomes real and substantial misery.
If the situation of Peru be regulated by these principles, it must be acknowledged that there are insuperable difficulties and impediments, which oppose the ideal projects of felicity founded on the augmentation of her natural productions, and on the assiduous cultivation of her plains. Compared with her extensive territory, the population forms what may be termed a desert: a million of inhabitants, or, according to the highest computation, a million and four hundred thousand, is a sad disproportion to so many leagues of extent.
Spain, in a smaller space, maintained in the time of Julius Cæsar fifty-two millions of souls. It appears by a discourse addressed, in 1624, to the churches of Castille, by Manrique, Bishop of Bajadoz, that in his time there was a deficiency of seven parts in ten of the ancient population; and, according to the national political writers, this vacuity is the real cause of there being, in one of the most fertile provinces, that of Estramadura, uncultivated lands capable of producing more ​than twenty thousand measures of corn. Throughout the extent of the kingdom, it is added, from eight to ten thousand square leagues of the richest land in Europe lie without culture.
Such a reduction of the ancient population must he highly detrimental to the prosperity of Spain; but that of Peru being still more considerable, is attended by more serious losses, and renders the application of a remedy proportionably difficult. In the enumeration which was made in 1551, by virtue of a royal mandate, the commissioners appointed for that purpose returned eight millions two hundred and fifty-five thousand Indians of either age and sex; but as the population of the provinces which now form the viceroyalties of Santa Fé and Buenos-Ayres was comprehended in this number, the aggregate amount does not militate against the principle which it has been the aim of this dissertation to establish, that America has always been a country thinly peopled.
The depopulation which is so much to be deplored, has been, however, accelerated in an extreme degree, by the multiplied causes which, in two centuries and a half, have united to contribute to the extermination of the Indians. The small-pox, unknown in Peru until the year 1588, was the devastating scourge of that nation, as it has constantly been of every uncivilized tribe, the individuals constituting which, expose, by their nudity, the body to the impressions of the air, and acquire, by the use of pigments and oleaginous frictions, to preserve them from the annoying bites of insects, a ​hard and callous skin, which prevents the free exudation from the pores requisite to the preservation of health.
The violent labours in the mines; the immoderate introduction of spirituous liquors; and the oppressive service of the metas, which, separating the Indian from his little inheritance, and depriving him of the society of his wife and children, forces him to banish himself to a distance of two or three hundred leagues, exposed to all the inconveniences of travelling, and to the diversity of climates, to be buried in the gloomy bowels of the earth, where the air he respires is replete with foul and pestilential vapours;—all these causes have so effectually conspired to their destruction, that the number of Indians of the different classes, sexes, and ages, in the whole of the jurisdiction of the viceroyalty of Lima, does not at this time amount to seven hundred thousand.
A similar depopulation has been observed in the other parts of South America. In the diocese of Mexico, which, according to authentic documents, contained, in the year 1600, five hundred thousand tributary Indians, not more than one hundred and nineteen thousand six hundred and eleven could be found, when an enumeration was made in 1741. The population of the tribe of Los Angeles, which was estimated, at the former of the above epochs, at two hundred and fifty-five thousand souls, was reduced, at the latter, to eighty-eight thousand two hundred and forty. That of Oaxaca, which amounted to a hundred and fifty thousand, was diminished to ​forty-four thousand two hundred and twenty-two. In all the other districts there was a proportionate diminution.
This immense vacuity is not to be ascribed to the Spanish possessions alone: it appears to be the destiny of all uncultivated and savage nations, to be extinguished by a proximity to, and communication with, those that are civilized and enlightened. The five powerful nations of Canada, which, in 1530, brought fifteen thousand warriors into the field, could not, at the present time, assemble three thousand. In 1730, thirty thousand natives resided on the western coast of Greenland: the numbers were reduced, in 1746, to nineteen thousand; and in 1770, did not amount to seven thousand.
To repair, in the Americas, this very mischievous deficiency, recourse was had to the introduction of negroes at a very early date after the discovery. If it were to our purpose to dwell on the totality of the supplies drawn from Africa, and which, on a fair estimate, may amount annually to forty thousand, we should find, that since the year 1517, the epoch of the first importation, to that of 1790, nearly eleven millions of these unfortunate creatures have been transplanted from their native soil. But, setting aside those required by other nations for their establishments, the annual importation into the viceroyalty of Lima may be regulated at five hundred, that number coming the nearest to the computation of the ninth article of the assiento treaty.
The Africans thus imported are, however, so many individuals lost to the growth of the population. The radical defeat of the climate, which, in the new world, according to the opinion of several celebrated naturalists, resists the multiplication of the human species, is sensibly evinced in the ​negroes, who would become utterly extinct, if their continual mortality were not to be supplied by repeated importations.
The melancholy which oppresses them on seeing themselves reduced to so hard a condition of slavery; the cruel treatment inflicted on them for the slightest causes; the insufficiency and unwholesome quality of their food; and the rigorous tasks from which the females themselves are not exempted, at the close of their pregnancy, and immediately after the birth; are so may principles destructive of their propagation.
If it has failed in a proportionate degree, the Africans who are free from these galling chains have not been deficient in reproduction; but it has been of a nature so prejudicial to the kingdom, as to have repeatedly called for the interference of the legislature. It consists of that mixture of the different casts, which, by the depuration of successive generations, acquires at the fourth a colour perfectly white; in the same way as we perceive, in the same number of filiations, but in an inverse progression, the transition from white to black.
The European emigrants embarked on board the fleets and galleons, were almost all of them buried in the sepulchre of the Spaniards; by which name Porto-Bello is known, on account of the morbid temperature of the air. In one instance, no less than six hundred of them perished in the space of a week; and such in general was the mortality which ensued, that it became necessary to discontinue the embarkations. Those who, to avoid these perils, proceeded to Peru, and those who have since been conveyed thither by the route of Cape Horn, either have been persons who, availing themselves of the means they possessed to acquire a fortune, have returned to spend it in their own country; or those who, discouraged at ​the contemplation of the hard lot reserved for their posterity, by an exclusion from the first and most honourable distinctions in society, have embraced celibacy, that they might not beget an offspring whose sole inheritance would be an obscure poverty; .or, lastly (and this refle6lion is extended to the above mentioned casts), that description of vagabonds and disorderly persons, who have no other resources for their advancement, except the vain and fruitless desire of acquiring riches. Individuals of this description do not increase and multiply, because the principal rule for the propagation of living creatures is subsistence. A species is augmented or diminished, in proportion to the means it possesses of procuring nourishment. The she wolves are more prolific than the ewes; and there are, notwithstanding, more rams than wolves.
If, therefore, the deficiency of hands for the rural operations, and the small internal consumption of the productions, be, in Peru, insuperable obstacles to the progress of agriculture; that which is opposed to the external commerce, by the distance of the country, by its local situation, and by the want of canals, bridges, and roads, to facilitate the traffic, and reduce the expences of the carriage and transport, is not less so. Without these resources, to aid the sales and exports of the superfluous commodities, there can be neither commerce, culture, nor communication. They are, in the body politic, what the blood-vessels are in the human body: if the latter give a free passage to the blood, and maintain motion and life, the former redouble and sustain the transmittals and exchanges, augmenting in a similar degree the activity and bulk of the enterprizes. The prejudices occasioned by tliis defect, have been recently pointed out, with much energy, by ​a Spaniard, whose reflections on the promotion of agriculture, in a great measure conformable to those we have hazarded, have been very favourably received by the public.
Without the aid of roads, canals, and bridges, distances are enlarged; the interposition of a precipice, a river, an enclosure, or other similar impediment, subjecting the traveller to an infinite number of unnecessary windings and deviations from the track he has to pursue. The active circulation is deadened; since the swamps which continually occur render the passage impracticable, and expose the guide himself to the greatest risks. The cultivated grounds suffer in a remarkable degree, because, with a view to avoid the morasses, the travellers and beasts of burthen turn aside into the corn fields, where they form, in every direction, paths which afford a ready entrance to the flocks and wild beasts; thus defeating the aim of the cultivator, who had employed his best efforts to exclude them from his possession.
These invincible obstacles are the cause why that particular commerce, which consists of the purchase of productions in one province, to sell them in another, is unknown in Peru; as is likewise, on the same account, the employment of carriages, by which the advantages of the transport are doubled; since, if two horses can carry on the back five quintals, they will, with less labour, when harnessed to a cart, draw a load of ten quintals, or even more. The merchandizes being subject both to heavy expences, and wearisome delays, their circulation and exportation are rendered in a manner impracticable.
​There can be no doubt but that the assurance of the consumption is the sole regulation of the crop. If the cultivator be denied the opportunity of disposing of the superfluity of his productions, he will be careless about an abundance which will not be profitable, and will confine himself to the planting and rearing of what is simply necessary. When he perceives that the commodities remain unsold for want of purchasers, he will diminish the number of his daily labourers, and the expences attendant on the improvement of the soil, invoking, as his sole refuge, a scarcity, which, by fixing a regular price on the different produdtions, may repay him for his time, fatigues, and expences.
The heaviest and most inevitable originate in the distance. As it surcharges the effects in their conveyance and transport, it weakens the principle of activity, and utterly prevents a competition with the prices of foreign productions. Great Britain, as an island, has comparatively but a small distance from the sea to the lands situated in the interior. France, by the means of rivers and canals, facilitates the approach to her ports, and in this manner acquires an advantage over other rival nations, by the irresistible recommendation of an inferior price.
In Peru, the productions are to be brought from a distance of forty or fifty leagues. In transporting them, all the delays and embarrassments of roads scarcely practicable, are to be encountered; and, as an internal consumption is entirely out of the question, they are afterwards to be exposed to the risks of a prolonged navigation, the extent of which, the difficulty of procuring vessels, and the bulk of the merchandizes, ​add new charges, which occasion an inevitable loss in the sale.
We will suppose, for instance, a moderate traffic in sugar and cotton, such as has been already established in wool. The consumption of the former of these articles exceeds, in Spain, a hundred and twenty thousand quintals, of which Madrid expends between thirteen and fourteen thousand in chocolate, sweetmeats, and sirops. This production might be easily augmented in Peru, and would be certain of finding a sale in the mother country, which is under the necessity of making large purchases in foreign markets. Without entering, however, into a serious refutation of the supposed advantages its cultivation presents over that of any other production, and which have been so highly extolled by a modern writer, the Abbe Raynal, we will confine ourselves to a comparison between what might be undertaken, and what has already been effected by the Spanish and foreign establishments, to demonstrate the loss which the colony of Peru would sustain, on account of its greater distance, in the very production by which other colonies gain.
In the space of five years, commencing with 1748, a hundred and seventy thousand eight hundred quintals of moist sugars were exported from the Havannah, at which island the prime cost was five piastres six reals per quintal, and that of the freightage and duties, three piastres. The sale in the mother country amounted to nine piastres two reals; and, consequently, the importers gained a clear profit of four reals per quintal, or of eighty-five thousand four hundred piastres on the complete sum of the importations.
​The white sugar of Martinique, which is reckoned the best produced by the foreign colonies, bearing in France a price of forty-two livres per quintal, that is, of ninety-four reals, affords, after all the expences have been deducted, a profit of five reals in that quantity. In this instance, therefore, as well as in the preceding one, a profitable branch of commerce is established.
But, in Peru, the quintal of sugar is of the value of a hundred reals. If we add a freightage of thirty-two reals, the lowest estimate that can be made, in consequence of the more remote distance respectively to the Havannah, which pays twenty-three reals, the cost will become such as to necessitate a loss of forty per cent.
In the article of cotton, a similar loss would be sustained. The common price of the arroba, of twenty-five pounds weight, of Surinam cotton, is, in Holland, forty-nine reals. The prime cost, in the viceroyalty of Lima, is five piastres; and if to this sum a freightage of three piastres be added, its value will be found to be augmented so considerably, as totally to prevent a competition with the foreign markets.
It appears, therefore, to be demonstrable, that Peru, for want either of an internal or extraneous consumption, as well as on account of its local position, and of the different invincible obstacles which have been deduced, cannot aspire to an extensive commerce of productions. It ought consequently to confine itself to a greater extraction of gold and silver; and should so proportion the importations from the mother country, as that the introduction of merchandizes should not exceed the annual produce of these metals, that being the sole rule of a just and salutary equipoise. The Peruvian mines are well ​known to abound in metallic riches of every kind. The attention bestowed on them ought to correspond with this natural privilege; instead of which, many productive mines have been unnecessarily abandoned, as is proved by the very diminished consumption of quicksilver in Peru.
It cannot be denied that the disposition of the lands, which, from the summit of the Cordilleras, observe a constant declination towards the sea, has frequently occasioned the inundation of very extensive and distinguished tracts of mineral territory. That the small produce of many mines, and the low estimation of their ores, have occasioned them to be abandoned by their proprietors, who were not repaid the expences of working them. And that the scarcity of hands, which has been general in all the provinces, must necessarily have occasioned a smaller extradtion, and a less assiduous culture.
That many of the mines, to come at which deep excavations have been made in the earth, are occupied by running waters, is rather to be ascribed to the want of cultivation and encouragement, than to any defectiveness of the soil. This mischief may therefore be remedied by a certain share of intelligence, and a proper management. In the mean time, a speedy compensation may be found, in the immense number of those which present themselves in an unwrought state, in the greater number of the mountains. If, in the case of others, the inferior quality of the ores does not repay the expences of refining, it is because, in Peru, metallurgy has been reduced to a traditional praftice, in which the waste has been greater than the riches that have been collected.
A century and a half have elapsed since this immense loss was first lamented by a native writer, whose work is of high ​authority on this subject. In his Treatise on the Art of refining Metals, Don Alonzo Barba, rector of San Bernardo in Potosi, makes the following observations: "It may be asserted without exaggeration, that many thousands of piastres have been, lost, as well in the extraction of the metallic substance from the ores, the qualities and differences of which have not been well understood; as in the disproportionate expenditure of quicksilver, of which upwards of two hundred and thirty-four thousand seven hundred quintals have been consumed, in the space of sixty-three years, in the imperial city of Potosi. Those who have been engaged in this pursuit, have, in the management of the ores, proceeded at random, and without any fundamental rules, or certain information relative to the silver they contained, and might be made to yield."
Notwithstanding the ignorance of mineralogy was attended by such prejudicial consequences, it would be difficult to believe, that it reached the unfortunate extreme which is described in an ancient and authentic document by Don Francisco Texada, intendant of the mine of Guadalcanal, dated in 1607. Speaking of the productiveness of many of the ores dug from the silver mines of Europe, each quintal of which yielded fifteen, thirty, and even sixty marks of the pure metallic substance, he adds as follows: "In the celebrated mountain of Potosi, which is now working, there is not a greater produce than one ounce and a half of pure and limpid silver, from each quintal of metallic earth, or stone, which is extracted; or, in other words, one thousand six hundred ​ounces of the above-mentioned earth, yield an ounce and a half only of silver." It is not, however, possible to reconcile so small a gain with the annual produce of four millions two. hundred and fifty thousand forty-three piastres, resulting from an average estimate of the first ninety-three years during which the mines of Potosi were wrought. This was the amount of the coinage; but the extraction of silver was still greater, it having been annually carried to five thousand quintals.
This fecundity was calculated to draw the public attention exclusively to the above mineral territory, and to throw a discredit on all the other mines of Peru, which were not capable of yielding collectively more than a thousand quintals of silver. Of this produce, Oruro supplied seven hundred quintals; Castro Virreyna, two hundred; and the remainder belonged to the excavated mountains. At Potosi, however, the encouragement was equal to the abundance of the acquired riches. Thirteen thousand Indians were placed on a permanent establishment, and constantly engaged in the different tasks assigned to them; at the same time that five thousand quintals of mercury were annually consumed, in separating the metal from the ores. This extraordinary consumption was owing to the ignorant method of assigning to each quintal of silver, an equal quantity of that necessary ingredient.
It would appear that the epoch is not very distant, when the clouds which have hitherto obscured the Peruvian horizon, in this doctmastic part, as well as in all the other branches of mineralogy, will be dispersed. The expedition which has, with this view, been confided by His Catholic Majesty to the ​direction of Baron Northenflicht, holds out a prospect of the highest improvements. If, as there can be little doubt, it should realize the flattering expectations the public has formed, it will not ameliorate the condition of the miner, without, at the same time, giving prosperity both to commerce and agriculture.
The latter ought not, on any consideration, to be abandoned. We have inculcated the preference that should be bestowed on the working of the mines, which must engage our particular attention, because they are the sources of our riches; but we ought not to neglect the precautions to which our plains are entitled. To know how to profit by them; to better their quality; to give them the advantages of irrigation; and to facilitate the transport of their productions; such are the principles of the prosperity of our agriculture, from which greater advantages may be derived than our commerce can be made to afford.
The criticism, or applause, of all the ideas exposed in this Dissertation, we leave to the opinion and judgment of our readers. It belongs to the chief magistrate to combine them; to analyze them; and either to stamp them with the seal of his approbation, or to reject and lay them aside. This operation is appropriate to the supreme authority, which, in calculating the abuses and benefits, destroys the former, while it preserves in its integrity each profitable establishment. It is the result of those rapid and delicate perceptions, which at the same time discover the end and the means, the resources and the obstacles, the facilities and the inconveniences, and which, being the effect of a natural talent, are not to be acquired by precepts.
APPENDIX.
In the preceding Dissertation, the fruit of the meditations, and of the eloquent pen of our Cephalio, it has been deemed necessary to omit various particulars, which, however they may be adapted to a ministerial work, are superior to the comprehension and limits of a periodical publication, similar to that of the Peruvian Mercury. A reform which ​should tend to simplify the plan of the custom-houses, and render them of easier access; the exposition of the prejudicial influence which the intermediate traffic of Buenos-Ayres has on the commerce of Peru; the project proposed in the year 1739, and latterly renewed, of rendering quicksilver a branch of free trade, &c. &c.; which compose the fourth and last part, are great conceptions, which realize, in the present production, the elevated views the author entertained when he engaged in this very useful labour.
* ↑ This dissertation appears to be the production of a Spaniard residing in Peru, for whose prejudices, supposing the suspicion to be well founded, a certain allowance is to be made. It contains, however, much valuable information.
* ↑ See the Introduction to the Natural History of Brazil, by Pison.
* ↑ This observation is drawn from Bertrand's Natural and Political History of Pennsylvania, but does not apply to the present circumstances of South America, in many of the cultivated parts of which the breeds of the domestic animals imported from Europe, are said rather to have improved, than to have degenerated. With a view to the illustration of this point, in Plate IV. the overseer of a royal Peruvian mine is introduced on horseback, as represented in the descriptive painting of an Indian festival.
* ↑ Garcilaso takes occasion to notice this, in speaking of the cherry-trees brought to Peru in 1580 by a merchant named Gaspar Alcozer.
* ↑ See the History of the English Colonies,.
* ↑ History of the Conquest of Peru, by Zarate.
* ↑ Fernando the Catholic conveyed, on his own private account, several negroes to America in the year 1510; but the exclusive privilege was granted to an individual named Chevris, in 1516. The latter ceded this right, for the sum of twenty three thousand ducats, to a company of Genoese merchants, by whom the first debarkation, consisting of five hundred Africans, and as many females, was made in the island of St. Domingo, at the commencement of the year 1517. See the Discourse on the Origin of the Slave Trade.
* ↑ Riccioli.
* ↑ One of the portions of rock of which this edifice was composed, has been calculated to weigh from twelve to fifteen tons. Another, which lies on the ground, and appears not to have been applied to the purpose for which it was intended, is of so enormous a size, as to make it difficult to conceive how, with such very simple means, it could have been brought from the quarry whence it was drawn.
* ↑ In the year referred to, that of 1789, a hundred and twenty thousand sheep were imported, by the route of Cuzco, from the jurisdiction of Buenos-Ayres into that of Lima, into which twenty thousand mules are annually introduced, from the provinces of La Sierra, annexed to the former of these jurisdictions.
* ↑ The following is a correct list of the vessels belonging to the port of Callao, at the close of the year 1789. Galleons: San Miguel, of 1800 tons; Hercules, of 1200; Aguila, of lOOO; Neponiuceno, of 950; Piedad, of 900; Barbara, of 850; Begona, of 750; and a new ship, of 900.—Merchant frigates: Baldiviano, ot 650 tons; Rosario, of 600; Socorro, of 600; Sacramento, of 500; Carmen, of 500; Dolores, of 400; Cordelera, of 400; Rosalia, of 350; Barca, of 350; Belencito, of 350; and Venturita, of 300.—Packet boats: Rosa, of 400 tons; Peilita, of 300; Santa Teresa, of 300; Africa, of 300; Copacavano, of 250; Aurorita, of 200; Carmen, of 200; Rosarito, of 150; Nepomucenito, of 150; Centeila, of 175; Pena, of 175; Ester, of 150; Venturoso, of 150; and San Antonito, of 125. Total amount of tonnage, 16,375 tons.
* ↑ This dissertation was penned in 1791.
* ↑ The measure (fanega), the half of the sextier, weighs about 120 pounds.
* ↑ This personal service of the Indians, in the royal mines of Peru, is explained in the note at the foot of page 78.
* ↑ Don Nicholas Arriquibar, in the Sixth Paper of his Political Recreations.
* ↑ The treatise from which this quotation is made, was published in 1637.