Quoted without comment, from A History of US, "The First Americans", page 133:
For trifles, as knives, bells, looking glasses, and such small merchandise which cost him four English pounds, a French trader had commodities that sold at his return for 110 pounds.--Richard Hackluyt, 1598
The English have no sense; they give us twenty knives .... for one beaver skin.--Algonquin Indian, 1634
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