The second reason also is founded on the expense and cost that had to be incurred for the security and defense of the trading ships from the said islands to Nueva Espana, with the fifty soldiers, military captain, and other officers; that the said ships had to be of a certain tonnage; and that for this reason of the said expenses and costs, the said decree ordered the imposition of the said two per cent in order that it should be unnecessary to have recourse to the royal treasury. It ordered the proceeds therefrom to be deposited in a separate fund and account, for the said expenses which had to be incurred with the said ships and their crews. That reason likewise has had no effect, for the said expenses have not been made, nor are they made; nor do the said military captain, soldiers, or other officers sail in the said ships. Neither are the said ships--those that there are--of the said burden and tonnage, but smaller. Therefore the said expenses and costs cease, upon which the said decree is grounded; accordingly, that which is ruled and ordered by it ceases, for the reason stated, and, indeed, should cease. Third, because by the former year of six hundred and eleven, the said governor, Don Juan de Silva, seeing the unsatisfactory method and arrangements existing for the collection of the said two per cent, tried to supply it--and did so--by the method that he thought least harmful, and of greater profit to the royal treasury--namely, to impose in its stead another duty of three per cent on the merchandise brought by the Chinese to sell in the said city of Manila. But, although the said imposition is ostensibly on the said Chinese, it comes, in fact, to be imposed on the inhabitants of Manila themselves; for the latter, being the purchasers, necessarily have to pay more, the Chinese sellers taking into consideration the new charge and imposition which has been levied on them. Consequently, the said two per cent has come to have actual effect and with greater profit by the said three per cent substituted in its place, which fact the said governor, Don Juan de Silva, had in mind. If the decree were again to be carried out, it would mean a double imposition for the above-mentioned damages and obstacles, and there would be no possibility of executing it.