Note 55 — Grau y Monfalcon’s Informatory Memorial of 1637 (continued 2)

Two things are inferred from the above. One is the scanty profits of the commerce of the islands, which are so greatly exaggerated by him who is proposing measures for destroying that commerce; for, were its profits half of what is alleged, it cannot be believed that vassals so loyal and so liberal in your Majesty’s service would hesitate so much about paying two per cent, and gaining less, when there is so great experience of the love and good-will with which they offer you their possessions and lives. This was not the only time in which this imposition was considered, since Governor Gomez Perez Das Mariñas imposed an additional two per cent besides what was stipulated in Nueva España,55 in the year 591, for the building of the walls of Manila; and although it was confirmed by a letter of instructions of January 17, 593, orders were given, on account of the opposition manifested to it by the inhabitants, that that duty cease when the work was finished, by decree of March 12, 597, which was put in force. For it is certain that considering the expenses, the risks, the hardships, the shipwrecks, and the losses of that voyage from China to Manila, and from Manila to Acapulco—so remote, so long, so troublesome, and so full of dangers, in which many ships have been wrecked, and the enemy have pillaged others, and not a few have put back in distress, and have suffered other disasters, as will be related [In the margin: “In number 93.”]—the profits become very small and the gains so limited. This is recognized in the amount of wealth possessed by the citizens of those islands at the end of sixty years, which is the best and most evident proof; since if it were not indeed ten million annually, as has been imagined, but only that which is permitted, without any illegal gain, and the profits one hundred per cent net, the islands would be found in a very different condition from what they are in at present.