Japan and the Japanese

CHAPTER XXVI.
PORTUGUESE TRADE TO JAPAN. DUTCH TRADE. SILVER, GOLD AND COP
PER, THE CHIEF ARTICLES OF EXPORT. EXPORT OF SILVER PROHIB1TKD
CHINESE TRADE. ITS INCREASE AFTER THE ACCESSION OF THE MANT-
CHEW DYNASTY. CHINESE TEMPLES AT NAGASAKI. A BUDDHIST DOCTOR
FROM CHINA. EDICT ON THE SUBJECT OF HOUSEHOLD WORSHIP. RESTRIC-
TIONS ON THE DUTCH TRADE. INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF CHINESE VISIT-
ORS TO NAGASAKI. THEIR OBJECTS. RESTRICTIONS ON THE CHINESB
TRADE. THE CHINESE SHUT UP IN A FACTORY. TRADE WITH LEW
CHEW. A. D. 15421090.
OF the real value and extent of the trade which for some ninety
years the Portuguese carried on with Japan, and which was brought
to a final close in the year 1638, we have no means of forming any
very exact estimate. When we read in writers of two or three
centuries ago glowing accounts of immense commercial profits, we
must also recollect that, compared with the commerce of the present
day, the trade upon which these great profits were made was exceedingly
limited in amount.
For more than half of the above period of ninety years the inter-
course of the Portuguese with Japan seems to have been reduced,
or nearly so, to a single annual ship, known as the great carac of
Macao, sent annually from that city, and laden chiefly with China
silks, every Portuguese citizen of Macao having the right,
if he
chose to exercise it, of putting on board a certain number of pack
ages, as did also the Society of Jesus, which had a college and a
commercial agency in that city. Of this traffic the following ac-
count is given by Ralph Fitch, an intelligent Englishman, who waa
in Malacca in the year 1588:* " When the Portuguese go from
Macao in China to Japan, they carry much white silk, gold, musk
and porcelains, and they bring from thence nothing but silver,
* For a further account of Fitch and his travels, see Appendix, note E.