1 Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Chicago 1976Google Scholar; originally published in 1776), especially Book 4, Part 3: ‘Of the Advantages which Europe has derived from the Discovery of America, and from that of a Passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope’. For deriving the general theory and policy on the worldwide international trade and economy, i.e. the advantage of free trade, Smith analysed several examples taken from the VOC activities in Asia, such as the following contemporary matters: Advantage and disadvantage of Batavia's location for intra-Asian trade also conducted by Asian merchants such as the Chinese, despite the most unwholesome climate in the world (Smith, An Inquiry, 151–152). This topic is further elaborated by Leonard Blussé, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Woman and the Dutch in VOC Batavia (Dordrecht 1986)Google Scholar. The overproduction of cloves and nutmeg in the Spice Islands (Smith, An Inquiry, 151–152) is also a central theme of Kristof Glamann in his book, Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620–1740 (Copenhagen and The Hague 1958)Google Scholar. Smith basically examined the economic consequences in Europe of European expansion to Asia (and America), while, for instance, Prakash attempts to give an overview of the economic influence of European expansion in Asia, by employing Smith's framework and investigating the inflows of precious metals into Asia, see Prakash, Om, Asia and Pre-modem World Economy (Leiden 1995).Google Scholar

2 Historiography on the intra-Asian trade should be discussed in another paper, simply because too much research has accumulated on it. The works of Om Prakash and Els M. Jacobs should be mentioned though: Prakash, Om, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630–1720 (Princeton 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacobs, Els M., Koopman in Azië: De Handel van de Verenigde Oost-lndische Compagnie tijdens de 18de Eeuw (Zutphen 2000)Google Scholar. On the other hand, Kawakatsu poses the concept of the inter-Asian competition: Heita Kawakatsu, ‘Nihon no Kōgyōka wo Meguru Gaiatsu to Aziakan Kyōsō [Western Impacts and Inter-Asian Competition in the Context of Japanese Industrialisation]’ in: Hamashita, Takeshi and Kawakatsu, Heita eds, Azia Kōekiken to Nihonkōgyōka 1500–1900 (Intra-Asian Trade and Japanese Industrialisation 1500–1900) (Tokyo 1991) 189.Google Scholar

3 Furber, Holden, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600–1800 (Minneapolis 1976) 249.Google Scholar

4 For the investigation on the effect by the inflows of currency materials into an economy, it is important to distinguish small cash from gold and silver that were used for long-distance trade or for large amount trade. Some previous research offers good suggestions on this distinction of currency roles (van Santen, H.W., De Verenigde Oost-lndische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan, 1620–1660 (Leiden 1982) 112–117Google Scholar; Barendse, R.J., ‘Trade and State in the Arabian Sea: A Survey from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of World History 11/2 (2000) 197–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kuroda, Akinobu, ‘Another Monetary Economy: The Case of Traditional China’ in: Latham, A.J.H. and Kawakatsu, Heita eds, Asia Pacific Dynamism 1550–2000 (London 2000) 192–195.Google Scholar

5 This is the Archief van de Boekhouder-Ceneraal te Batavia (BGB), kept in the Nationaal Archief (NA) in The Hague.

6 Glamann, Kristof, ‘The Dutch East India Company's Trade in Japanese Copper, 1645–1736’, Scandinavian Economic History Review 1 (1953) 54–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 In Figure I, the Asian light guilders (Indische lichte gulden) and the Asian heavy guilders (Indische zware gulden) are converted into the Dutch guilders (Nederlandse gulden). The conversion ratio is as follows: 125 Asian light guilders (until the book year 1742/43) = 100 Asian heavy guilders (1743/44–1767/68) = 83.65 Dutch guilders (after 1768/69). See, Jacobs, Koopman in Azië, 225–226.

8 Figure I shows only gross profit per pound of Japanese copper sold. However, since the annual exports from Japan to the VOC were roughly one million pounds throughout the eighteenth century, the trend in the gross profits from the Japanese copper trade of the VOC can be considered to be similar to the movement of the gross profits per unit.

9 Suzuki, Yasuko, ‘Japanese Copper Trade by the Dutch East India Company, 1646–1805’, Bulletin of the Faculty of Letters (Hanazono University) 32 (2000) 190.Google Scholar

10 Glamann, The Dutch East India Company's Trade’, 55–62.

11 In 1595 the base price was at 100. Habib, Irfan, ‘Monetary System and Price’ in: Raychaudhuri, T. and Habib, I. eds, The Cambridge Economic History of India I (Cambridge 1982) 370.Google Scholar

12 Suzuki, ‘Japanese Copper Trade’, 190.

13 Kuiper, J. Feenstra, Japan en de Buitenwereld in de 18e Eeuw (The Hague 1921) 130.Google Scholar

14 Furber, Holden, John Company at Work: A Study of European Expansion in India in the Late Eighteenth Century (Cambridge 1948) 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holden Furber, Rival Empires, 248–251; Gupta, Asin Das, Malabar in Asian Trade 1740–1800 (Cambridge 1967) 101.Google Scholar

15 Regarding the exports of Japanese copper in the fifteenth century, see, Kazul Tashiro, Tsushima Han no Chōsen Yusyutsu Dō Chōtatsu ni tsuite: Bakufu no Dō Tōsei to Nissen Dō Bōeki no Suitai [On the Korean Exports of Copper from the Tsushima Clan]’, Chōsen Gakuhō (Journal of the Academic Association of Koreanology in Japan) 66 (1973) 144.

16 Sasaki, Jun'nosuke, ‘Dōzan no Keiei to Gijutsu [The Administrations and Techniques of Copper Mines]’ in: Nagahara, Keiji and Yamaguchi, Keiji eds, Kōza Ninon Gizyutsu no Shakabhi (Social History of Japanese Techniques) 5 (Tokyo 1983) 181.Google Scholar

17 In Figure III the export volumes to the VOC mainly rely on the work by Yasuko Suzuki (Suzuki, ‘Japanese Copper Trade’). However, Suzuki investigated only the documentation of the NFJ (het Archief van de Nederlandse Factory in Japan, NA) such as journals and invoices at the Dutch establishment in Japan and therefore could not find the data for some years, which are complemented in this article by using the BGB and the VOC documentations. On the other hand, no records are available for some period on the Chinese junk trade and Japan's exports to Korea, for example the period between 1716 and 1754 for the Chinese junk trade.

18 Hall, John, ‘Notes on the Early Ch'ing Copper Trade with Japan’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12 (1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Won, Yoohan, Choson Fugi Hwapaesa Yongu (A Study on the Monetary History of the Latter Period of the Choson Dynasty) (Seoul 1975).Google Scholar

19 Nachod, Oskar, Die Beziehungen der Niederländischen Ostindischen Kompagnie zu Japan im Siebzehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig 1897) 316, 356.Google Scholar

20 Nagasaki Jikki Nendairoku (Institute for Cultural History in Kyushu, Kyushu University).

21 Kanai, Madoka, Kinsei Nihon to Oranda [Early Modem Japan and the Netherlands] (Tokyo 1993) 126.Google Scholar

22 Nagasaki Jikki Nendairoku.

23 Nagazumi, Yoko, ‘Osaka Dōza [Osaka Copper Guild]’ in: Kyōgikai, Chihōshi Kenkyū ed., Taikei, Nihon Sangyōshi (Suruey of the History of Japanese Industries) 6 (Tokyo 1960) 408–413.Google Scholar

24 Ryuto Shimada, Tōsen Raikō Rūto no Henka to Kinsei Nihon no Kokusan Daitaika [The Influence of Change in Junk Trading Routes upon Production in Early Modem Japan]’, Waseda Economic Studies 49 (1999) 69.

25 Hall, ‘Notes on the Early Ch'ing Copper Trade’.

26 This third point concerns a simple but significant subject. Should we consider that most of all Japanese copper imported to South Asia was used for coinage? Previous research has never strictly investigated the products made of Japanese copper. Some authors presume that almost all the copper was supplied to the mints. For example, Frank Perlin assumes that all the copper imported was melted for the production of currency, using a new concept of ‘coin power’ (Frank Perlin, The Invisible City: Monetary, Administrative and Popular Infrastructures in Asia and Europe, 1500–1900 (Aldershot and Brookfield 1993) 261–262). On the other hand, Kristof Glamann gives examples of other copper products made of Japanese copper, although he did not forget to mention that the copper's ‘function as coinage metal must be considered of primary importance’ (Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, 167–168). Without doubt, eighteenth-century South Asia used many copper products other than copper coins, such as armaments, copper household utensils like jugs, vats for distilling arrack and religious artefacts like Buddha statues. In any case, making clear the allocation rate of the copper imported for minting is needed by economic historians, who analyse the whole South Asian economy from the monetary aspect. Difficulty in investigating the allocation rate for minting is caused by the variety in the South Asian economy. However, further strict research is unquestionably needed, which I would like propose here, even though it would seem better to acquiesce in the currently accepted hypothesis that the bulk of the imported copper was used for minting.

27 The 1720s was a peak decade for the Bengal export trade by the VOC. See, Prakash, Om, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India (Cambridge 1998) 198–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Generaal Journaal, BGB, NA.

29 Prakash, The Dutch East India Company, 249.

30 Arasaratnam, Sinnappah, Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast 1650–1740 (Delhi 1986) 50.Google Scholar

31 Scholten, C., The Coins of the Dutch Overseas Territories 1601–1948 (Amsterdam 1953) 141.Google Scholar

32 Codrington, H.W., Ceylon Coins and Currency (Delhi 1989) 116.Google Scholar

33 The gold exports from Persia and Japan to the VOC were declining in the first half of the eighteenth century, from 859,500 guilders (Persia) and 615,600 guilders (Japan) in 1711/12–1712/13 to 6,300 guilders (Persia) and 5,900 guilders (Japan) in 1751/52–1752/53. See, Jacobs, Koopman in Aziē, 255.

34 For large volume transactions, gold was mainly used in Coromandel, while silver was used in Bengal. See, Perlin, The Invisible City, 229.

35 VOC 2198, p. 1919, NA.

36 VOC 2471, p. 2977, NA.

37 Jacobs, Koopman in Azië, 236.

38 Scholten, The Coins of the Dutch Overseas, 143–145.

39 Gupta, Asin Das, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat c. 1700–1750 (Wiesbaden 1979).Google Scholar

40 Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise, 185.

41 Ibid., 100.

42 Moreland, W.H., From Akbar to Awangzeb: A Study in Indian Economic History (London 1923) 62–67.Google Scholar

43 During the period from 1664 to 1694, the VOC exported 2,752 piculs of copper from Ayutthaya to India. The share of the copper export trade of the VOC in Ayutthaya was 4.1 per cent in value, based on the condition that the export trade for the Dutch intra-Asian trade between Siam and Japan occupied 50.8 per cent of the total exports. Since the main exporters of Japanese copper from Ayutthaya were English and Portuguese traders, Japanese copper was considered to be important merchandise to the Siamese authorities bringing them profits from their relay trade. See, George Vinal Smith, The Dutch in Seventeenth- Century Thailand (De Kalb 1977) 88–89, 173.

44 BGB 11836, BGB 11837, NA.

45 Blussé, Strange Company, 121.

46 Shimada, ‘Tōsen Raikō Rūto’, 61–62.