CHAP. XXIV.
195
scarcely any of their own productions, but chieflythat silver which they obtained from SpanishAmerica and the West Indies in return for flourand other articles the produce of their soil.
This vast demand for the east has been the sub-ject of calculation with several writers. M. For-bonnais supposes that between 1492 and 1724 one-half of the gold and silver which America had sup-plied to Europe had been absorbed by the Levant,the India, and the China trade. M. Gerboux, in hiswork on pecuniary legislation, has not merely ad-vocated the same opinion, buthas computed the pro-portion of wealth conveyed to the east at a somewhathigher rate. Baron Humboldt, from whose workon Mexico these views of the two French writersare extracted, has taken pains to estimate the pro-portion of the exports to Asia of the preciousmetals which Europe had drawn from America .His estimation is made upon an examination ofthe exports at the time he composed his work,between the years 1803 and 1806, when theamount of gold and silver furnished by America had nearly reached its highest point, when the de-mand for goods from India had not lessened, andwhen the exports to India of British productionswere far less than at present. His calculation istherefore neither accommodated to the earlieryears of the period we are considering, nor is itadapted to measure the proportions which withinthe few last years have existed. He states the
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