Japan and the Japanese

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
FDRTHER JECLINE OF THE DUTCH TRADE. DEGRADATION OF THE JAPANESt
COINS. THE DUTCH THREATEN TO WITHDRAW FROM JAPAN. RESTRICTIONS
ON THE CHINESE TRADE. PROBABLE CAUSE OF THE POLICY ADOPTED BY
THE JAPANESE. DRAIN OF THE PRECIOUS METALS. NEW BASIS UPON
WHICH FUTURE TRADE MUST BE ARRANGED.
NOTWITHSTANDING the lamentations uttered by Kjimpfer in the
name of the Dutch factors, the trade to Japan had by no means in
his time reached its lowest level, and it was subjected soon after
his departure to new and more stringent limitations.
In the year 1696 appeared a new kind of kobang. The old
kobang was twenty carats eight and a half, and even ten, grains
fine ; that is, supposing it divided into twenty-four parts, twenty
parts and a half were fine gold.* The new kobang was thirteen
carats six or seven grains fine, containing, consequently, only two
thirds as much gold as the old one, and yet the Dutch were required
to receive it at the same rate of sixty-eight mas of silver.
The old kobang had returned on the coast of Coromandel a profit
of twenty -five per cent., the new produced a loss of fifteen or sixteen
per cent. ; but some of the old kobangs being still paid over at the
same rate as the new, some profits continued to be derived from
the gold, till, in 1710, the Japanese made a still more serious
change in their coin, by reducing the weight of the kobang nearly
one half, from forty-seven kanderins (two hundred and seventy-four
grains) to twenty-five kanderins (one hundred and forty-six grains),
which, as the Dutch were still obliged to receive these new kobangs
at the rate of sixty-eight mas, caused a loss of from thirty-four to
* In one thousand parts, eight hundred and fifty-four were pure gold.
The pure metal in our American coins is nine hundred parts in one ttousand ;
or, in the old phraseology, they are twenty-one carats and tweh e grains
fine.