Chapter 17

these Malucas Islands and the others.

These Malucas Islands give from year to year four thousand four hundred bares of cloves in clusters, which are called "selected," according to the relation which is made and the information given by Don Juan de Silva, knight of the habit of Santiago, when he governed the Filipinas Islands. Others say that there are eight thousand, and still others, six. The first statement is the most accurate, and agrees with another note made by Captain Gregorio de Vidaña, a citizen of Manila; he was a person very learned in manuscripts, who spent many years there, and sought to inquire into the matter out of curiosity.

Four thousand four hundred bares of cloves, each bare containing 640 libras, amount to 2,816,000 libras--which at one ducado, the price at which they are sold [in Europe] will bring the same number of ducados. All this can be bought for a hundred thousand ducados. [55] It is not bought with money, but with cloth purchased in India and in China; and what in those countries costs ten is sold in the Malucas at fifty. This profit is at present possessed by the Dutch, who buy on the coast of Caramendel, and from the Chinese in Cochinchina and Java, whence they take the merchandise which they trade for cloves in Maluco. The nutmeg, according to Don Juan de Silva, is worth 500U ducados, when transported to these parts.

The cloves gathered in the island of Ambueno amount to a great deal, although I have no exact account of the quantity.

The pepper which is taken from Greater Java is much, although I do not know the exact quantity. They likewise have a factory and a treaty friendship with the king of Achen, in the island of Samatra, where there is much merchandise. He is an enemy of ours, as well as he who attacked Malaca in the year 16, and burned a galleon of the four which were awaiting Don Juan de Silva. Soon afterward seven Dutch galleons arrived to aid him, and burned the other three. Malaca is a very important place, and it is very necessary that your Majesty should preserve it, as it is the passage to all the kingdoms and districts of that archipelago of San Laçaro, where there is so much wealth.