Japan and the Japanese

RESTRICTIONS OX THE DUTCH TRADE. 21S
DO loiger allowed to sell their goods to the native merchants. The
government appointed appraisers, who set a certain value on the
goods, much less than the old prices, at which valuation the Dutch
must sell, or else take the goods away. Anything which the goods
sold for to the Japanese merchants, over the appraisement, went
into the town treasury of Nagasaki.* These appraisements grew
lower and lower, every year, till at last the Dutch, threatening, if
things went on in this way, to abandon the trade altogether, petitioned
the emperor to be restored to their ancient privileges,
assured to them by the concession of Gongin-Sama. After waiting
three years, they got a gracious answer. The appraisements were
abolished, but at the same time, in 1685, an order was suddenly
issued, limiting the amount which the Dutch might sell in any one
year to the value of three hundred thousand taels, or in Dutch
money to ten tons and a half of gold, equal to four hundred and
* Unfortunately for the English, their attempt at a revival of intercourse,
mentioned iu the last chapter, was niaile the very year of the introduction
of tliis new check on foreign tnule. The appraisement extended as well to
the Chinese ns the Dutch cargoes, as is apparent from the following closing
paragraph of the Knglish "
narrative :
During the time [July and August,
1072] we were in port, there came twelve junks in all, eight from Batavia,
two from Siam, one from Canton, one from Cambodia, and six Dutch ships
of the Company's. They had not any from Tycoun [Formosa], by reason
the year before they put the price upnn their sugar and skins : and so they
intend to do for all other people, ft/r whatsoever goods shall be brought to
their port ; which if they do, few will seek after their commodities on such
unequal terms."
There is strong reason to suppose that these new restrictions on foreign
trade grew out of the diminished produce of the mines, which furnished the
chief article of export. The working of these mines seems to have greatly
increased after the pacification of Japan by its subjection to the imperial
authority. Such is the statement in the Japanese tract on the wealth of
Japan, already referred to. According to this tract, the first gold coins were
struck by Taiko-Sama. This increase of metallic product seems to have
given, about the time of the commencement of the Dutch trade, a new im-
pulse to foreign commerce. Though the Portuguese trade had been stopped,
it had been a good deal more than replaced by the increase of the Chinese
traffic, and alreaily the metallic drain appears to have been seriously felt.
This is a much more likely reason for the policy now adopted than the mere
peisonal hostility of certain Japanese grandees, to which the Dutch at Desi-
TUV and Kaiupfer as their echo, ascribed it.