were given, after their insurrection, [54] under an annuity obligation [censo] to private persons so that they might settle therein, and the annuity amounts to more than one hundred thousand ducados of revenue, which are paid through the increase in the production of the silk; and [it is necessary] that there should be a ready sale and handling of it, for the estates that were given to them have no other important products from which they could obtain the money to pay the said annuity; necessarily, if the production of the silk ceases, then the payment of the annuity will cease. For in that and in the ready sale of the said silk consists the power [to pay the annuity]; and it also consists in the many people who, having the silk, would occupy themselves in its production, culture, and preparation, who will consume and use a great quantity of food. That would cause an excise duty on the food of more than one hundred thousand additional ducados per year; but this income would cease if the production and cultivation of the silk ceased, and his Majesty would lose the said one hundred thousand ducados. Besides, the said silk paying, as it does, three hundred and two maravedis per libra--without reckoning the tenth, or the forty per cent on the gross price at which it is at once sold in the alcaicerias--as soon as it is sold, while there would be less produced and sold, and the price of it would be lower, the duties will be less. And since the silk of China does not pay more than fifteen per cent of import tax and excise, because it is foreign, his Majesty loses twenty-five per cent on each libra of the silk of the kingdom of Granada. That silk is produced in less quantity by the importation of that of China; and since our silk pays higher duties than the foreign--either because of its excellent quality, or because it is native, or for some other reason--that freedom from duties ought to be extended to it rather than to the Chinese silk, instead of burdening it with greater duties. These latter should be imposed upon the Chinese silk, so that, less of it being imported for that reason, less money would be taken from Nueva Espana to Filipinas for its purchase; while more money would be brought to these kingdoms. That would result in greater investments and cargoes, and more silk would be produced in these kingdoms. For so little silk has been produced in the kingdom of Granada for the last two years, because of its little sale and value and its great cost, that the duties from the revenues of their silk have been worth thirty thousand ducados less each of those two years than they were worth during the years before. Two signal losses have resulted from that, and they will become greater every day, and more irreparable. The first is that as so little silk is produced, and the producers have left the leaves on the mulberry-trees, the trees have come to such a pass that for lack of pruning and care they will be ruined in little