Captain Joseph de Navada Alvarado, regidor of this city of Manila, represented in this city council that, as was public and well known, from the year six hundred and nineteen until the present of thirty-two, the Portuguese inhabitants of Macan have come to this city in various vessels, without fail in all the years above mentioned, laden with Chinese merchandise, in order to sell it here; and that, with their said coming, it seems that they have obtained possession of this trade, which is so strictly prohibited by various royal decrees. On account of that trade they have waxed rich, while the inhabitants of this community now find themselves in their so wretched present condition, by the great sales which have been generally made to them; and because with the said trade that which the Sangleys had by coming yearly to this said city, with the greatest abundance of goods, has ceased. It appears that necessity has always obliged them to have to buy from the said Portuguese. Notwithstanding that the prices have usually been very high, the profit which the inhabitants of this said city have made in Nueva Espana has been very slight; and at times it has been little more than the prime cost of the goods here, besides the heavy expenses and duties which they carry, both in these islands and in the said Nueva Espana. For that reason, he feels that it is very advisable for the preservation of the said inhabitants and of this community that the said trade of the Portuguese cease, and that they be ordered not to come to this city; for this is permitted by the royal will, under the penalties expressed in the said decrees in which he orders it, to which we refer, since there are so many and so fundamental reasons as the following. The first, that the said Portuguese of Macan having tried in years past to open this trade, and having come to this city with merchandise to sell it there, this city council, seeing the damage that might grow from it (which is the damage bewailed today), opposed the said coming, and made various decisions in regard to demanding that the royal will be observed, and that the Portuguese be ordered not to return to this city. And in fact they did not come for the time being, or for many years after, until the said year of six hundred and nineteen--[since] when, not encountering the resistance which had been formerly made, they have continued the said trade, as aforesaid.