It is even to be noted that not eight hundred boxes of those products and commodities are always shipped, nor all of them outside the permission--but at times much less than is contained in the per mission, and sometimes very few, are sent; and these are registered and pay the royal duties, as do the others. Number 87. Imposition of the two per cent, and the reason why it should be repealed The seventh and last reason is that which is deduced from the imposition of the two per cent which an effort has been made to introduce, on the merchandise of those islands which is exported to Nueva España, and on the silver which is taken to them, by way of avería. It was ordered that this be collected, by the general decree for the permission of 604, and by another of April 22, 608. Governor Don Rodrigo de Bivero tried to execute the first, and Don Juan de Silva the second, and both found so many disadvantages that they suspended it. In the year 625, the royal officials again insisted upon its observance, during the governorship of Don Fernando de Silva, and later during that of Don Juan Niño de Tabora--who, recognizing that the motives that influenced their predecessors were more cogent than before, because of the greater decline in which they found that commerce, the poverty of the inhabitants, and the loss in their business, conformed to the earlier decisions. Licentiate Don Francisco de Roxas put forth more diligent efforts for the actual collection of the said two per cent, but he learned by positive evidence that that collection would mean the destruction of the trade of the islands. For their citizens were resolved not to export their goods, or to take advantage of the permission, as it was apparent to them that, if they paid this additional two per cent besides the three per cent that they pay and the other three per cent on the Chinese merchandise, with the freights and expenses of the ships, the duties in entering Acapulco, and afterward on the silver when they depart [thence]; and that, if without that two per cent, they are continually losing, with it they will be completely ruined, and will be able neither to advance, nor even to preserve their wealth for their support: therefore, the inhabitants have represented several arguments of not a little force to your Majesty. First, that although it was a fact that the profits made formerly on the Chinese trade were large, they were indeed quite small after the entrance of the Dutch into those seas; for by their plundering the Chinese merchandise its cost has so increased that the profit made on it is indeed very little, and there are so many risks in it that there are some years when the merchants lose everything. Second, Governor Don Juan de Silva, seeing that it was difficult to enforce this imposition, supplied its place by the three per cent duty that he ordered to be collected on the Chinese merchandise, whereupon its price again rose. Third,