------------------------+------------+------------ From | To | To 1613 | 1683. | 1693. ------------------------+------------+------------ | Guilders. | Guilders. The total profits were | 259,250,969| 322,735,312 Expences | 212,282,020| 274,416,306 ------------------------+------------+------------ Nett Profits | 46,968,949| 48,319,506 ------------------------+------------+------------ Thus, on an average of forty years till 1653, the annual profits were about 640,000 guilders a year; Of fifty years to 1663 about 500,000 do. Of sixty do. to 1673 750,000 do. Of seventy do to 1683 670,000 do. Of eighty do to 1693 600,000 do. In the year 1696, the nett profit from the same year (1613) amounted to only 40,206,789 guilders, being full eight millions less than it had been in 1693, only three years preceding; and the average nett annual profit from 1613 was reduced to 484,371 guilders. But from 1697 to 1779, comprehending a like period of eighty-three years, the losses were so exorbitant as to overbalance and absorb, not only the contemporary, but all the preceding profits in Europe, and even a large amount of fictitious profit stimulated to screen the government in India. The nett amount of profits calculated from 1613, amounted Guilders. In 1697 to only 38,696,527 In 1703 31,674,645 In 1713 16,805,598 In 1723 4,838,925 In 1724 1,037,777 In 1730 there was already a total loss of 7,737,610, and in the year 1779 this loss amounted to 84,985,425. The Company used to send yearly to India, before the commencement of the war of 1780, twenty ships of about nine hundred tons each, and eight or ten of about eight hundred tons each, which, to the number of twenty-two or twenty-three, returned with cargoes: four from China, three from Ceylon, three from Bengal, one from Coromandel, and twelve or thirteen from Batavia. They annually exported to India provisions and other articles of trade to the amount of two millions six or eight thousand florins, and in cash from four to six millions, and sold yearly to an amount generally of twenty or twenty-one millions; and it was estimated that the Indian trade maintained, directly and indirectly, all the external commerce of Holland, employing a capital of about two hundred and sixty millions of florins.