Therefore, the said visitor, notwithstanding the great desire which he showed of putting the said collection into execution, did not dare to do it; but considered it better to suspend it, and report to your Majesty. Although he tried to have it collected as a voluntary service for the future, the citizens, seeing their great lack of wealth, could not conform to that measure, although for that time only they gave a subsidy of four thousand pesos, on condition that it should not serve as a precedent for the future, and that there should be no further talk of the said collection [of the said two per cent] until, after your Majesty had examined it, a suitable decision should be adopted. They petition your Majesty to be pleased to consider the very necessary and urgent causes and reasons why the said collection of the said two per cent should not be carried on, but that its execution be abrogated, which are as follows: First, that the motive and cause declared in the said decree of six hundred and four for the said imposition, was the declaration that there was suffering because of the great profits of those who were trading and trafficking in the Filipinas commerce. It was said that the profits were one hundred per cent, and at times two hundred. Although the said Sangleys, antecedent to the said year of six hundred and four, brought the merchandise from China to the said city, and sold it at prices so low that when taken and sold in Nueva Espana it allowed a very great profit: still that ceased many years ago, from the said year of six hundred and four, when the Dutch enemy and pirates began to continue in and infest those islands with many different plunderings of the merchandise that the Chinese ships brought to the said city of Manila. On that account the said trade has gone on diminishing from day to day, very fast and steadily, to the pass to which the said Dutch have brought it by their pursuit and pillaging of the said Chinese ships. From that has resulted the ruin of the said commerce, and for the same reason the profits of it [have declined] to so great a degree that scarcely can one now buy one pico of silk for the price that he formerly paid for two and one-half picos. This has been the reason why, since the merchandise of the Chinese was lacking to the inhabitants for their investments, they have had to buy the goods from the Portuguese of Macan, at prices so high and excessive that they make no considerable profit in Nueva Espana. Consequently, the profits that the inhabitants of Manila formerly had have come to be made by the said Portuguese of Macan. Thus the reason and motive for the said royal decree has entirely and surely disappeared; and this same fact ought to do away with its ruling.