it does appear very doubtful whether they did export during the entire period from 1730 to 1748, 150,000l. worth of British produce as a legiti mate mercantile adventure.

The opposition experienced by the company on the occasion of the renewal of their charter in 1730, induced them to provide, by anticipation, against all future clamors of this nature. They therefore proposed, in the year 1743, when 23 years of their charter were yet unexpired, to lend to government 1,000,000l. at 3 per cent, provided that their privileges were extended to the year 1780; and this application being quite unexpected, the consent of government was obtained without difficulty.

It was about this period of the history of the company that they began to distinguish themselves as a military power. The victories of Lord Clive increased very much their influence and the extent of their possessions, but opinion was divided as to the policy of pursuing plans of conquest in India, and the legislature seems to have taken the negative view of the subject, for the House of Commons resolved in 1782, "that to pursue schemes of conquest and extent of dominion in India are measures repugnant to the wish, honor, and the policy of this nation." But, on the other hand, it was argued that, having gone thus far, it was necessary to go farther, for the native powers seeing, too late, a prospect of their total annihilation, in their despair were exerting themselves to the utmost against British influence. They entered into combinations, and so waged war against the English, who were, however, everywhere victorious, and their dominion increased until it has at length extended over the territories of all the considerable native princes. The magnitude of the acquisitions made by Lord Clive powerfully attracted the attention of the British public. Their value was much overrated, and much dissatisfaction was expressed that the company alone should enjoy the benefit of conquests which the troops of the state had materially assisted in effecting. But this extension of territory did not bring with it the profits and advantages which had been anticipated, but was, from its very nature and circumstances, productive of great and multiplied abuses.

The possessions of the company were now rapidly increasing, but their trade continued comparatively insignificant. During the three years ending with 1773, the value of the entire exports of British produce and manufactures, including military stores exported to India and China, amounted to 1,469,4117., which is at the rate of 489, 8031. a-year; the anual exports of bullion during the same period being only 84,9331.

During the administration of Mr. Hastings the revenue of the company declined considerably; this, together with the wars with Hyder Ali and France, involved them in much difficulty, which being unable to meet, they were obliged, in 1783, to present a petition to parliament, setting forth their inability to pay their public debts, and praying to be excused from such payment, and to be supported with a loan of 900,0007. To remedy such a state of things Mr Pitt brought forward his India bill, which was successfully carried through all its stages. By this bill a Board of Control was established, consisting of six members of the Privy Council, who were to "check, superintend, and control all acts, operations, and

concerns which in any way relate to the civil or military government, or revenues of the territories and possessions of the East India Company." The Marquis Cornwallis succeeded Mr. Hastings, and during his administration Tippoo Saib, the son of Hyder Ali, was deprived of a great portion of his possessions; many important changes were also effected at this time, insomuch that the administration of this nobleman may be said, upon the whole, to have been favorable to the interests of the company. Under succeeding governors the territories of the company were much increased, but still their commerce continued to be very inconsiderable. In the year 1807 their exports amounted only to 952,4167., and in the year 1811, to 1,033,816/., showing, during five years, an improvement to the amount of no more than 81,400l. It has been already seen that this body, from its earliest incorporation, has been constantly assailed by foreign and domestic enemies. Again, in the year 1813, very great efforts were made by the manufacturing and commercial interests to have the monopoly set aside and the trade to the East thrown open. These exertions did to a certain extent succeed, for private individuals were authorized to trade to the Presidencies of Madras, Bengal, and Calcutta, under certain restrictions.

In May 1821, a report of the committee of the House of Lords was printed, wherein it was stated that "the greatly increased consumption of British goods in the East, since the commencement of the free trade, cannot be accounted for by the demand of European residents, the number of whom does not materially vary; and it appears to have been much the greatest in articles calculated for the general use of the natives. That the cotton manufactures of this country alone are stated, since the first opening of the trade, to have been augmented from four to fivefold. The value of the merchandise exported from Great Britain to India, which amounted, in 1814, to 870,177., amounted, in 1819, to 3,052,741." It is not our purpose to detail the many reasons why the Indian trade should be unrestrictedly thrown open; in the face of facts like these, when in 1832 and 1833, the renewal of the company's charter was discussed, they could offer no sound objection to their being deprived of the privilege of trading. Therefore the act 3 and 4 Will. 4, c. 85, for continuing the charter till 1854, has terminated the company's commercial character, by enacting that their trade to China should cease on the 22d of April, 1834, and that they should as soon as possible, after that date, dispose of their stocks on hand, and close their commercial business. Under the new act the functions of the East India Company are wholly political; they are to continue to govern India, under the supervision of the Board of Control, until the 30th of April, 1854.

Considered in all its bearings, the conquest of India is the most extraordinary in the history of the world. The territorial revenues of the East India Company have long equalled those of the most powerful monarchies. They are greater than those of either Russia or Austria, and inferior only to those of Great Britain and France. Yet the financial state of the company is far from prosperous. Vast as their revenue is, their expenditure appears to have been yet greater, and their debts amount to a sum exceeding sixty millions. Our East Indian wars have been wars of neces

sity, not of conquest, and have extended British responsibilities and influence to the frontiers of Persia and China, and the deserts of Tartary. The moral comparison affords a striking illustration of the powers of human intelligence under cultivation, and the impotence of the same when sunk in superstition and ignorance. The population of India, subject to British rule, amounts to nearly 160 millions of souls, and the European residents to but a few thousands.

ARTICLE VIII.

GOLD-ITS HISTORY, FLUCTUATIONS AND PRESENT SOURCES.

A Translation from the Deutsche Vierteljahrs Schrift.

By the Junior Editor.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

In

THE writer of this article is Alexander von Humboldt, and we can have no better guaranty of its value than his distinguished name. addition to his profound and varied acquisitions in the department of physical science, his attention has been particularly directed to the subject of mines for more than half a century. In 1791 he studied mining at Freyberg. In the following year he was appointed assessor in the mining and smelting department, and soon afterwards removed to Baireuth as overseer of the mines in Franconia. Here he introduced many im provements, among which was the establishment of the mining school at Steben; he likewise made valuable galvanic experiments, the results of which were published at Berlin in 1796. In 1799 he repaired, in company with Aimé Bonpland, to South America, and devoted the five fol lowing years to a scientific examination of the most interesting localities in the new world. During this period he visited almost every important mine in South America and Mexico. In 1829 he made a journey to northern Asia-extending his explorations even to the confines of China-a prominent object of which was to ascertain the mineral resources of that vast country. It is not however as a dry mineralogist that he has directed his investigations to this subject. He has studied, attentively and profoundly, the history of the precious metals, their fluctuations from age to age, their connection with currency, trade, agriculture, manufactures, and indeed with every department of industry. Hence his opinions as a political economist will be found of greater practical value than those of the naturalist.

Our readers will observe some diversity in the weights referred to in this article. It will be sufficient for all ordinary purposes to consider the French kilogramme as equivalent to 2 pounds avoirdupois and to 4 Castilian marks. The mark of Cologne weighs a little more and the Prussian mark a little less than that of Castile. The Russian pud is equal to 40 Russian and 36 English pounds.—JR. Ed.

ACCORDING to the old opinion of Herodotus, (III. 106) in the unequal distribution of the blessings and treasures of earth, the most beautiful productions were bestowed upon the ends of the world. This sentiment was not merely founded upon a melancholy feeling, the attribute of humanity, that fortune dwells far from us; it also expressed the simple fact that, by means of the intercourse of nations, gold and spices, amber and tin were brought from a great distance to the Greeks, as the inhabitants of the temperate zone. After the commerce of the Phoenicians, of the Edomites in the Gulf of Akabah, of Egypt under the Ptolemies and the Romans had gradually made known the long undiscovered coasts of southern Africa, the productions of the torrid zone began to be obtained from the first hand; and the metallic treasures of the world were removed by the active imagination of men farther and farther toward the East. Twice have the same people, the Arabs,-at the epoch of the Lagi and the Cæsars, so important to commerce, and also at the close of the fifteenth century, the period of the Portuguese discoveries,-pointed out to the West the way to India. Ophir, the Dorado of Solomon, now extended to the east of the Ganges. There was Chryse which had so long perplexed the travellers of the middle ages, at one time regarded as an island, at another as part of the gold Chersonesus. The quantity of gold, which even at the present day, according to John Crawford, Borneo and Sumatra bring into circulation, accounts for the ancient celebrity of this country. Near to Chryse, the land of gold,-the wished for goal of the Indodromoi,-in accordance with the notions of a systematizing geography, a silver island, Argyre, must regularly lie ;-in order, as it were, to unite the two precious metals, the riches of Ophir and of Iberian Tartessus. The geographical fables of classic antiquity, much disfigured, however, are mirrored in the geography of the middle ages. In the Arabs Edrisi and Bakui, we find also at the end of the Indian Ocean an island Sahabet, with silver sand, and near by Saila (not to be confounded with Ceylon or Serendiv), where dogs and apes wear golden collars.

But in determining the proper home of gold and all the nobler productions of the earth, the idea of tropical heat was associated with that of distance. "Until your Excellency shall find black men," writes Ferrer, a Catalonian lapidary, to the Admiral Christopher Columbus, in 1495, "you cannot expect great things, real treasures, as spices, diamonds and gold." This letter has been recently found in a book, printed at Barcelona in 1545, with the singular title: " Sentencias catholicas del Divi poeta Dant." The abundance of gold in the Ural mountains, extending north to where the earth scarcely thaws in the summer months, the diamonds which were discovered,* near the 60th degree of latitude on the European declivity of Ural, by my two companions during my Siberian expedition, undertaken in 1829 by the direction of the Emperor Nicholas, do not favor the connection of gold and diamonds with tropical heat and colored men. Christopher Columbus,-who ascribed to gold a

* Reise nach dem Ural, dem Altai und dem Caspischen Meere von A. v. Humboldt, G. Rose und G. Ehrenberg. I. pp. 352–373.

moral and religious value, "because," as he says, "whoever has it obtains whatever he wishes in this world, yea, even conducts (by paying for masses) many souls to Paradise," was a firm believer in the theory of the lapidary Ferrer. He went in search of Zipangu (Japan), which was said to be the gold island Chryse; and as he sailed along the coast of Cuba, which he supposed to be a part of Eastern Asia (Cathay), he wrote in his journal, Nov. 14, 1492: "Judging by the great heat which I suffer, the country must be rich in gold." It was thus that false analogies made men forget what classic antiquity had related of the metallic treasures of the Massageta and Arimaspi, in the high north of Europe;-I say of Europe, because the barren plain of northern Asia, the modern Siberia, with its pine forests, was regarded as only a wearisome continuation of the Belgic, Baltic and Sarmatian level.

If we embrace the history of the commercial intercourse of Europe in a single glance, we shall find that anciently the richest sources of gold were in Asia. After the close of the middle ages, and three hundred years later, these belonged to the new world. At present, since the commencement of the nineteenth century, the fountains pour forth again with great profusion in Asia; but in different zones of the same continent. This change in the direction of the current, this supply which accidental discoveries in the north afford, at a time when the production of gold had suddenly ceased at the south, deserves an attentive examination, an inquiry founded upon numerical data,-for in political economy, as in the investigation of the phenomena of nature, figures are always the decisive thing, they are the last, inexorable judges in the complicated relations of fiscal atfairs.

We learn from Bökh's acute researches how the opening of the east, by the Persian wars, and by the great Macedonian's march to northern India, resulted in the gradual accumulation of gold among the European Greeks; how, for example, in the time of Demosthenes the precious metals were worth almost five times less than at the epoch of Solon. The stream then flowed from east to west; and the influx of gold was so great that the relation of gold to silver, which had been as 1 to 13 in the time of Herodotus, was at the death of Alexander and a hundred years later as 1 to 10. In proportion to the contractedness of the commercial relations of the old world, must have been the extent and suddenness of the changes in the comparative value of gold and silver. Hence we find in Rome, soon after the conquest of Syracuse,-in consequence of a local accumulation of one of the precious metals, the relation of gold to silver as 1: 17; whereas under Julius Cæsar it fell at one period to 1: 83. The smaller the quantity of metal already in a country, the easier it is to produce these enormous fluctuations by an importation from abroad. The state of the world,-in consequence of the universality and rapidity of commercial intercourse, which restores the equilibrium, and also of the

* Staatshaushaltung der Athener, I. pp. 6―31.

† See Letronne's Considérations générales sur l'évaluation des monnaies grecques et romaines. 1817, pp. 112.