Comparative Analysis of Government Reactions to Increased Foreign Trade (c. 1450-1750 CE)

Your Honors know by experience that trade in Asia must be driven and maintained under the protection and favor of Your Honors’ own weapons, and that the weapons must be paid for by the profits from the trade. So we cannot carry on trade without war, nor war without trade. (1614) The Company wages war for the United Netherlands in East India. If someone would say that it should abstain from this, and that the common country in its turn has its hands full of its own defense, the answer to this is that without the might of arms the trade with India cannot be maintained, nor can the state of the United Netherlands be maintained without the trade with India. Send us yearly a large quantity of ships, men, and money, and Your Honors will in time become masters of the most important trade of the entire world. (1620)

The Mongols’ different culture and values made it impossible for our government to control them through rituals, philosophy, and law, which they would never believe and respect. In the 19th year of the Jiajing [1540], the Mongols came to ask to pay tribute to us. It was nothing but an honest attempt to get what they needed from trading with us. Unfortunately, our officials on the border did not understand this and refused their request for trade, instead executing the Mongol messengers. This resulted in the Mongols’ prompt invasion across the north. We had to pay for our misjudgment by going through the suffering of war and conflict for the next thirty years.

Japanese ships are strictly forbidden to leave for foreign countries. No Japanese is permitted to go abroad. If there is anyone who attempts to do so secretly, he must be executed. The ship so involved must be impounded and its owner arrested, and the matter must be reported to the higher authority. If any Japanese returns from overseas after residing there, he must be put to death... No single trading city shall be permitted to purchase all the merchandise brought by foreign ships. Samurai are not permitted to purchase any goods originating from foreign ships directly from Chinese merchants in Nagasaki... The date of departure homeward of foreign ships shall not be later than the twentieth day of the ninth month. The goods brought by foreign ships which remained unsold may not be deposited or accepted for deposit.

Virji Vora must not be displeased in any case. I confess him to be a man that has often supplied our needs in Surat moneys. Nevertheless, he has been the most harmful man to your trade in all the Moghuls’ dominions. By his power and intimacy with the Mughal governor, he wields his influence so that no merchant in town dares to displease him by coming to trade with us, except sometimes he sends some purposely to underbid for a trade good that he is after. He knows that because of our extreme debts, we must sell, and so he beats the price down till we come to his own rates. Thus so long as Virji Vora is so much our creditor, little or no profit is to be made upon any goods we can bring to Surat.

If the [Ottoman] Turks were allowed to travel freely to India, … and trade in merchandise wherever they wished, not only would Your Majesty’s own profits suffer greatly, but the rest of us would be left completely empty handed … All of the business [handled by the Portuguese] would immediately fall to the Turks and … they would bring to India all of the principal products which we bring from this Kingdom [of Portugal]. … [In Ottoman lands, the same goods] can be acquired much more cheaply than in Portugal. In addition, the duration of their voyages, their transportation costs, the risks they would face and the damage they would sustain to their ships and their merchandise would be less than half of that suffered by our own ships. … As for [the government’s monopoly in] pepper and other controlled spices, this also would be threatened by allowing the Turks to … [trade] in India. Thus [if allowed to operate freely, their ties with] local Muslims [in India] would leave them even better informed and better organized, such that by means of the [Red Sea and Persian Gulf] they could send as much [pepper] as they wanted, and become masters of the lion’s share of the trade in spices.

The king of Persia sells to the neighboring kingdoms silk, brocades, and other rich goods, carpets and precious stones. The name of “merchant” is a name much respected in Persia and is not allowed to shop keepers or dealers in trifling goods, nor to those who do not trade in foreign countries. It is a term allowed only to those who employ deputies or agents in the remotest countries, and those men are sometimes raised to the highest ranks and are usually employed in embassies. … Silk is the staple commodity of Persia. The Dutch import it into Europe to the value of near six hundred thousand pounds yearly, by the Indian Sea. And all the Europeans who trade in Turkey import nothing more valuable than the Persian silks, for which they buy from the Armenians. The Muscovites import it likewise. There are some Persian traders who have deputies in all parts of the world, as far as Sweden on the one side and China on the other side.