Note 10 — COMMERCE OF THE PHILIPPINES WITH NUEVA ESPAÑA

“With this, it may be said, finally came to an end the celebrated controversies which so persistently and for so long a time were waged by the merchants of Cadiz against the commerce of Filipinas, the standard of the [permission of] 500,000 dollars [duros] remaining permanent until the emancipation of the Americas [from Spanish rule] put an end to that traffic. It had the same effect on all the restrictions which for the space of almost three centuries had weighed down the Filipino commerce—for even in the year 1810 (as Comyn tells us in his Estado de las islas Filipinas, speaking of the Acapulco galleon) only one ship, commanded by an officer of the navy, could make these expeditions, once a year; and in order to share in that commerce a merchant must have a vote in the consulate, which presupposed property to the amount of 8,000 dollars and several years of residence in the country. He was [also] obliged to contribute, in the same proportion as the other shippers, to the allowance of 15,000 or 20,000 dollars made to the commandant of the galleon, besides paying 25 to 40 per cent for freight charges, according to circumstances. [Meanwhile,] the shippers were not able to make any examination of the condition of the ships in which they risked a great part of their fortunes; and there were many other impediments, which now we would suppose could not possibly have ever existed, if we were not so habituated to stupid proceedings of this sort.” (Azcarraga y Palmero, Libertad de comercio, pp. 64, 65.)

When the galleon of Acapulco ceased its voyages—the last one sailed from Manila in 1811, and returned from Acapulco in 1815—the commerce fell into the hands of individuals, to whom in 1820 permission was granted to export merchandise from Filipinas to the value of 750,000 pesos a year; and their voyages were extended from Acapulco to San Blas, Guayaquil, and Callao. (Montero y Vidal, Hist. de Filipinas, i, p. 462, note.)

See Raynal’s account of the policy pursued in the New World by Spain, its results on both that country and the colonies, and the elements of weakness in it, in Etab. et com. des Européens, ii, pp. 290–356. ↑