Note 2 — Chapter X · A Century of Obscurity and Decline. 1663–1762.
Reading edition
The colonists upon the Pacific coast of America suffered from the lack of those commodities demanded by civilized life, which could only reach them as they came from Spain through the port of Porto Bello and the Isthmus of Panama. Without question, an enormous and beneficial commerce could have been conducted by the Philippines with the provinces of western America.2