Note 34 — Chapter I

Footnote 34:

(return)

There seems to have been a contraband trade carried on at Cadiz itself. Foreign merchants embarked their goods upon the galleons directly from their own vessels in the harbour, without registering them with the Contratacion; and on the return of the fleets received the price of their goods in ingots of gold and silver by the same fraud. It is scarcely possible that this was done without the tacit authorization of the Council of the Indies at Madrid, for if the Council had insisted upon a rigid execution of the laws regarding registration, detection would have been inevitable.