the expenses of the country, which regularly consumed all that came thence. Since the exportation of what formerly went to Perù has ceased, the necessary result is that these goods remain and are consumed in Nueva España, as being its own product, and that just so much less of the Chinese silk is required--which is substituted in place of the home product when the former goods are imported through the permission--and necessarily less of the other is produced. Besides taking away their occupation from the people who are engaged in the silk industry, this will cause an evident diminution in the commerce of Philipinas, the bulk of which consists in silks; for just so much less of what the islands export is consumed [in Nueva España] as cannot be sold out of what is produced there--which will be an amount so noticeable that with this reduction alone that commerce will become excessively weakened. This has been already proved in regard to the last ships which came from those islands--for, as they failed to come the previous year, they found no market for their goods, and could not sell enough of these even to pay the freight charges and the duties, according to letters from Nueva España and authentic documents; it is, therefore, very expedient that the permission given to Perù should be revived, else, by not conceding it, a great reduction is feared in that of Philipinas. If, when that permission was granted, the matter was discussed with adequate information, and the advantages which there might be on either side were considered, and now if no new reasons or circumstances arise which compel the decision to be suspended beyond the fact that Francisco de Victoria contrived such expedients, without heeding other objects, so that it seems as if he cared only for the abandonment and ruin of the islands, no opportunity should be given for that suspension. Even if the memorials which [Don Juan Grau] has furnished on the other topics prove to be sufficiently answered, and their arguments are shown to be weak or false, it must not be understood that there are better ones for what concerns the permission given to Perù; but no answer is made here, save in what pertains to the Philipinas, for the rest concerns Nueva España and Perù, who will give fuller explanations. And, considering the evident injury and risk to which the islands are exposed by the lack of freight ships that can sail thither, since in case the ships belonging to the commerce are wrecked, or forced to take refuge in other ports, or arrive late, the islands will perish if there are no other ships in which to send the usual succor of men and money: and since freight vessels are not built, which is necessary in all the coasts of Nueva España, this deficiency must be supplied some years by the ships from Perù that go to Acapulco--which do not sail now, on account of the permission which was given for that purpose being suspended--from which also