71. On August 2, 1722, the governor, Marqués de Torre-Campo, received at Manila the ordinance despatched on October 27, 1720, of which the preceding "Period" speaks. Having caused this decree to be published by a proclamation in that city, record of it was made in the offices, and it was communicated to the municipal council in open session. The cabildo protested against it, promising to obey, but resolving to set forth to the governor in the first place, and afterward to his Majesty, the damages and troubles which would result from its execution to religion, to the royal treasury, and to the greater welfare of those islands, from their not continuing to enjoy the permission to trade in fabrics of silk, which they had possessed for more than one hundred and forty years. They would therefore be obliged to entreat that his Majesty give them permission to retire, with their families, to the lands and domains of his Majesty which they should consider most suitable. 72. In a long memorial presented to the governor was set forth in detail the motives on which they based this action; and when orders had been given that the fiscal of that Audiencia should examine it, although he recognized that their statements were correct, and that the islands could not maintain themselves on the system of commerce which had been laid down, he demanded that orders should be given to fulfil the cited royal decree, and that the city and merchants should appeal to his Majesty who, there was reason to expect, would take care of his vassals there, and of the interests, both spiritual and temporal, which were concerned in it--and the governor gave orders to that effect. Although the city and the merchants by a second memorial insisted upon a suspension of the above regulation, demanding that, in case there was no room for it and for continuing their trade in silks and stuffs as heretofore, at least he should declare that they were not obliged to invest their funds in the commodities which were prescribed to them, as it would occasion their total ruin (and they demonstrated this): nevertheless, the governor, bearing in mind that the damages to his Majesty would be no less, if the galleon for that year should go empty, commanded that, in accordance with the amount permitted by the cited regulation, they should make the distribution of the [permits to ship] merchandise as his Majesty had commanded. The city and the merchants, with the hope that his Majesty would give attention to the urgent representations that would be made by the commissaries whom it had been agreed to despatch to the court, agreed to continue the commerce meanwhile conformably to the despatch of 1720--sacrificing out of respect to his Majesty, and in order to maintain the religion established in those islands, their own wealth, which necessarily must be ruined and lost in a commerce so useless and unfortunate as that to which they were reduced; since the bulky