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Once Japan started ''importing'' [[gold]] and silver from the 1760s onward, the ''kaisho'' levied taxes on these imports, 35% on gold and 7-9% on silver; the revenues from these levies went a long way to supporting the agency, and the people of Nagasaki, while the remainder of the gold and silver was sent to the shogunate's treasuries.<ref>Hellyer, 84-85.</ref>
Once Japan started ''importing'' [[gold]] and silver from the 1760s onward, the ''kaisho'' levied taxes on these imports, 35% on gold and 7-9% on silver; the revenues from these levies went a long way to supporting the agency, and the people of Nagasaki, while the remainder of the gold and silver was sent to the shogunate's treasuries.<ref>Hellyer, 84-85.</ref>
In the 1860s, Chinese activity at Nagasaki plummeted dramatically, in part due to competition from Western traders, and the turmoil in China created by the [[Taiping Rebellion]]. Policies mandating the clearinghouse's control over trade at the port remained in place, however, and in fact had been expanded at that point; an [[1857]] Supplementary Treaty with the Dutch required the Dutch to purchase all their barley, rice flour, soybeans, and certain other goods from the clearinghouse, and the export of copper was now banned as well. As Western firms came to dominate the scene, however, and Chinese ships disappeared, copper and marine products which only Chinese merchants were permitted by shogunate law to trade in piled up in the clearinghouse's warehouses. The last Chinese merchants to visit Nagasaki and engage in any real business came in [[1859]], and by [[1863]], the ''Nagasaki kaisho'' decided to sell its inventory of marine products and copper on the local market, at a loss. The shogunate officially abandoned its monopoly on marine products in [[1865]]/8, and closed the ''kaisho'' in 1867, though for all intents and purposes the clearinghouse / monopoly system had already seen its end nearly a decade earlier.<ref>Hellyer, 184.</ref>
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