The fleets, which supplied the transatlantic colonies, were distinguished by the name of _Galleons_ and _Flotas_, respectively, and were equipped annually, taking their departure from Seville and latterly from Cadiz. The galleons touched first at _Carthagena_ and then at _Porto-Bello_. To the former port resorted the merchants of _Santa Martha_, _Caraccas_, _New Granada_, and other provinces; the latter port was the emporium which supplied _Peru_ and _Chili_. At the right season of the year the product of these countries was transported by sea to _Panamá_; whence, as soon as the appearance of the fleet was announced, it was conveyed across the isthmus, on mules, and down the river _Chagre_ to _Porto-Bello_, the noxious climate of which village gave it the unenviable distinction of being the most unhealthy spot in the world. For the greater part of the year it was the residence of negroes and mulattoes, but during the six weeks of the fair it was a _Nigni-Novgorod_, in which was transacted the richest traffic of two hemispheres. The _Flota_ proceeded to _Vera-Cruz_, for the supply of _Mexico_. The restrictive regulation of Spain, by which her enormous colonial trade was confined to a single port, had, of course, the effect of throwing the commerce into the hands of a few houses, who could regulate their own prices, with the result of checking enterprise and diminishing production. The object of the monopolists was, not to supply the colonies with as much goods as the latter could consume and could afford to purchase at prices remunerative both to producers and to merchants; but to throw upon the markets such a moderate amount of goods as might secure exorbitant prices. There were not wanting Spanish statesmen and political-economists who could discern the ruinous effects of such a state of things; and the most extravagant measures were suggested with a view to check them. It required, however, the convulsion produced by civil war, and the contact into which Spain was thus thrown with foreign nations, to rouse her into vigorous action. The monarchs of the Bourbon line took measures to suppress a state of things which had overturned the system of Spanish trade with America. The trade with _Peru_ was now thrown open to the French, whose King granted the privilege to the merchants of St. Malo, who, unlike their grasping competitors of Cadiz, furnished the Pacific Viceroyalty with European goods in liberal quantity and at a moderate price. The result was that the trade of Spain with her own chief colony was on the point of being extinguished. Peremptory instructions had accordingly once more to be issued, forbidding the admission of foreign vessels into any port of _Chili_ or _Peru_.