Japan and the Japanese

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. 453
the name of Johannis Botaniats. The honor of a Dutch name, ex-
ceedingly coveted by the Japanese, was solicited even by the prince
of Satzuma and his secretary. Being attacked with colic on his re-
turn from Jedo, Docff submitted to the Japanese remedy of acu-
but he does not give any high
idea of its
efficacy.
Two accounts current of the trade of Japan for the years 1804
puncture ;
and 1806, published by Raffles, will serve to show its condition at
this time. The articles sent to Japan were sugar, spices, woollens,
cottons, tin, lead, quicksilver, sapan-wood, saffron, liquorice, elephant's-teeth,
catechu, and ducatoons, sugar forming about half the
cargo in value. The prime cost at Batavia was, in 1804, 211,890,
in 1806, 161,008 rix dollars, to which were to be added freight
and charges at Batavia, amounting in 1804 to 150,000, in 1806 to
106,244 rix dollars, making the whole cost in 1804, 361,807, in
1806, 266,252 rix dollars. The sales at Desima amounted in
1804 to 160,378, in 1806 to 108,797 rix dollars; but this in-
cluded, in 1804, 3,333 rix dollars from old goods, and, in 1806,
5,428 rix dollars borrowed of the Japanese to complete the cargo.
From these amounts were to be deducted the expenses of the estab-
lishment at Desima, and loss in weight on the sugar, viz., in 1804,
67,952,* and in 1806, 39,625 rix dollars, leaving to be employed
in the purchase of copper and camphor, in 1804, 92,426, in 1806,
69,172 rix dollars, to which were added 13,125 rix dollars from the
sale of old goods. The copper brought back by the ship of 1804
having been coined at Batavia, the entire profit of the voyage
amounted to 507,147 rix dollars, but the larger part of this profit
belonged, in fact, to the mint, the copper being coined at a rate
above its intrinsic value. In 1808, the copper being sold, the
balance in favor of the voyage was but 175,505 rix dollars, deduct-
ing the amount borrowed in Japan. It was only the low rate at
which copper was furnished by the Japanese government that en-
abled these voyages to pay.
In 1807, the Eclipse, of Boston, chartered at Canton by the
Russian American Company, for Kamtchatka and the north-west
coast of America, entered the bay of Nagasaki under Russian
* The expenses of the visit to Jedo, in 1804, were sixteen thousand six
hundred and sixt" -six rix dollars.