Note 105 — PART I
Reading edition
It would be foreign to the object of a cursory sketch like the present to enter farther into the details of this subject. Enough has been said to bear out an assertion, which those who are acquainted with the trade will not think exaggerated, that had this system been fairly and equitably established, one half of the trade to China would before this have centered at Manila; and it is only at Manila that the advantages of such a transit could have been unknown or neglected in the 19th century. I proceed to make some observations on the capital and its inhabitants.105