ARTICLES OF EXPORTATION. 387 the natives, who were in the habit of receiv- ing from the English often as much as 18j~j Spanish dollars the picul. Munn says, the Eng- lish paid as high as 22^, but Munn was mak- ing out a case for the East India Company, and probably this is an exaggeration."^ The same competition, as we have already seen, rais- ed pepper to 8A^-. The cloves purchased in the Indies at these prices, we are informed by Munn, were sold in England at the rate of 177TT)n Spanish dollars, or 850 per cent, advance on the highest of , these prices. I come now to the last period of the history of the clove trade, that of the close mono- poly of the Dutch. This may be said to date from the expulsion of the English, in 1623, and therefore has continued near two centuries. An at- tempt to impose the monopoly of cloves, in trade and culture, occasioned constant wars and insur-
- " The Governor, Van Spult, again sent an expedition
of war-boats against Loehoe and Cambello, to compel the inhabitants of these districts to cut down their clove trees, as they refused to leave off trading with foreigners, and, as there was no means of preventing them, for, when they knew of any strangers arriving, they would conceal their ships in by places and carry their cloves to them. The English es- pecially hurt the market exceedingly, giving for a bahar of cloves from 80 to lOO rix dollars, a price which the natives desired from us also." — Rumphius's Manuscript History of Amboyna, Chap. viii.
