As has been seen in the sketches of the early history of Venezuela, the pearl fisheries of the Caribbean Islands were the lure which first attracted a band of settlers who, however unworthy of the title of pioneers or merchants, were nevertheless the first traffickers who carried the produce of the New World to Europe. The value of the pearls exported in the early years of the sixteenth century appears to have been very great, and equal to, if not in excess of, all the produce and merchandise shipped annually from the colony of Venezuela in the closing years of Spanish rule. After the destruction of the pearl fisheries by the reckless and extravagant exploitation of the _conquistadores_, the value of the exports varied according to the quantity of gold and precious metals extorted from the Indians, and little trading was carried on. As the easily accessible stores of gold decreased, the Court of Spain sought to acquire gain in a not entirely new fashion from the colonists by selling them to the Compañía Guipuzcoana in 1728, which, at first but a chartered company with special privileges, soon obtained a monopoly, and became by its extortions the cause of the first attempt at revolt on the part of the captaincy-general. At length their rights were abrogated in 1778, and the commerce of the colony was at liberty again to develop in a normal fashion; though the continued arbitrary opening and closing of the ports to foreign nations could not but render any advance very fitful. In 1796 the imports into Venezuela during one of the “open” periods reached a total of over £600,000, and in 1810 the increasing quantity of tropical produce transmitted to the East was nearly one million pounds in value. Though, under the republic, the commerce of the country has greatly increased, the twenty years following the Declaration of Independence were a period of great industrial depression. For the first ten years or so the war with Spain practically put a stop to ordinary trade with foreign countries; during the joint administration of the three provinces of Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador in the Great Colombia of Bolivar, Venezuela suffered in all departments of her life, until at last the union was severed in 1830, and from that date it is possible to compare the progress of Venezuelan commerce with that of other nations; for convenience this has been expressed in a diagram, the solid line corresponding to exports and the dotted line to imports. The zenith of Venezuela’s prosperity in the seventy years was reached during the Presidency of Guzman Blanco, the figures for the present day being far below these. The excess and growing excess in value of exports over imports is natural in a country rich, as Venezuela is, in easily won agricultural and mineral resources but poor as yet in manufactures and shipping; and that this is so may be readily seen from the detailed table of exports and imports for 1909-1910 given in Appendix B.