It was the Manila pamphlet above referred to which first brought against the Jesuits the charges, ultimately so damaging to the order, of an uncanonical connection with commerce. The account of this trade, so far as Japan was concerned, as given by the Jesuits themselves, is as follows. The revenues of the mission had consisted at first only of the charities of some individuals, aided by a sum of five hundred ducats, paid yearly at Macao by the king of Portugal—a donation doubled in 1574, to facilitate the foundation of a college. Some considerable amounts had been received at different times from the wealthier native converts; but almost the whole of these sums had been expended in the founding and support of hospitals and other charities. For several years the chief resource of the fathers for their own support had been the proceeds of a fund of four thousand ducats, which Louis Almeida, on entering the order in 1556, and devoting himself to the Japanese mission, as mentioned in a former chapter, had set aside for that purpose out of his own private fortune, all the rest of which he had bestowed in the founding of hospitals. This fund had been entrusted by Almeida to certain Portuguese merchants to trade upon for the benefit of the Jesuits. But, though this trust had been faithfully executed, the proceeds of it had been quite too small to support the increasing number of the missionaries. Some small pensions, allowed them by the Popes Gregory XIII and Sixtus V, failed to make up the deficiency; and, at length, it was agreed by the commercial company at Macao, by whom the annual Portuguese carac was fitted out for Japan, and by means of which the chief trade between Japan and the Portuguese was now carried on, that out of the sixteen hundred packages of silks, which formed a part of her cargo, fifty (afterwards increased to eighty) packages should be shipped on account of the Jesuits,—an arrangement to which the viceroy of the Indies assented. For this business two commercial agencies were maintained by the Jesuits,—one at Macao, the other at Nagasaki. The enemies of the Jesuits insisted that they sent to Japan yearly goods to the value of a hundred and sixty thousand ducats, on which their profits were sixty thousand. This was probably exaggerated; yet, when Charlevoix pretends that the whole annual Portuguese trade and profits did not amount to those sums, his statement is refuted as well by other known facts as by the vastly larger value of the cargoes of such of the annual caracs as some years later fell into the hands of the Dutch.