None of the colonies of America could conduct commerce with the Philippines except Mexico, and here all communication must pass through the port of Acapulco. This trade was limited to the passage of a single vessel a year. In 1605 two galleons were permitted, but their size was reduced to three hundred tons. They were allowed to carry out 500,000 pesos of silver, but no more than 250,000 pesos' worth of Chinese products could be returned. Neither the Spaniards of Mexico nor any part of America could traffic directly with China, nor could Spanish vessels pass from Manila to the ports of Asia. Only those goods could be bought which Chinese merchants themselves brought to the Philippines. Selfishness of Merchants in Spain.--Even these restrictions did not satisfy the jealousy of the merchants of Spain. They complained that the royal orders limiting the traffic were not regarded, and they insisted upon so vexatious a supervision of this commerce, and surrounded infractions of the law with such terrible penalties, that the trade was not maintained even to the amount permitted by law. Spanish merchants even went to the point of petitioning for the abandonment of the Philippines, on the ground that the importations from China were prejudicial to the industry of the Peninsula. 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. [76] Trade Between South America and the Philippines Forbidden.--But this traffic was absolutely forbidden, and to prevent Chinese and Philippine goods from entering South America, the trade between Mexico and Peru was in 1636 wholly suppressed by a decree. This decree, as it stands upon the pages of the great Recopilacion, is an epitome of the insane economic policy of the Spaniard. It cites that whereas "it had been permitted that from Peru to New Spain there should go each year two vessels for commerce and traffic to the amount of two hundred thousand ducats [which later had been reduced to one hundred thousand ducats], and because there had increased in Peru to an excessive amount the commerce in the fabrics of China, in spite of the many prohibitions that had been imposed, and in order absolutely to remove the occasion for the future, we order and command the officers of Peru and New Spain that they invariably prohibit and suppress this commerce and traffic between the two kingdoms by all the channels through which it is conducted, maintaining this prohibition firmly and continually for the future." [77]