The early history of the pepper trade is similar to that of other Eastern spices. The Dutch for a long time confined the cultivation of it to the Island of Java. To accomplish this they forced its cultivation with so much earnestness that they defeated their own purpose and a more enlightened system has prevailed for the past thirty years. Since it is no longer under government monopoly, and entire freedom is allowed in the raising of this spice, its cultivation has been greatly increased. The king of Portugal contracted with middlemen in each of his forts on the coast of Malabar for an annual supply of 30,000 quintals of pepper, and bound himself to send five ships every year to export that amount. All risk was held by the middlemen or farmers “who landed it in Portugal.” As a compensation for this risk, the middlemen obtained the price of twelve ducats a quintal and had great and strong privileges: “First, that no man of what estate or condition soever he be, either Portingall or of any place in India, may deale or trade in pepper, but they upon paine of death which is very sharply looked into. And although the pepper were for the king’s own person, yet must the farmers pepper be first laden to whom the Viceroy and other officers and Captains of India must give all assistance, helpe and favour with watching same and all other things whatsoever that shall by said farmers be required for the safetie and benefite of the said pepper.” In fact, it was because the price of pepper was so high during the Middle Ages that the Portuguese were led to seek a sea route to India. After the passage around the Cape of Good Hope had been discovered, about 1496, there was a considerable reduction in the price of pepper, and when it began to be cultivated in the Islands of the Malay Archipelago, another reduction was made. It, however, remained a monopoly of the Portuguese crown for many years, even as late as the eighteenth century. The earliest reference to a trade in pepper in England is A. D. 978-1016, when it was enacted that traders bringing their ships to Billingsgate should pay at Christmas and Easter, with other tributes, ten pounds of pepper.