11, 1699, and the Manila citizens attempted to compound the duties on the cargo for 100,000 pesos; but the royal fiscal opposed this, showing that the ship had brought 6,754 piezas of lading, without counting a considerable quantity of pepper and other goods outside of the registration. It was also found that although the law restricted the entire cargo to the value of 250,000 pesos, and its ownership to the citizens of Manila, this vessel contained goods to the amount of 233,966 pesos which belonged to the citizens of Puebla alone, and it was estimated that it must contain at least a million pesos' worth of goods belonging to merchants in the City of Mexico. The Mexican government compelled the payment on these goods of duties amounting to 50,000 pesos more, and would have investigated the whole matter, to ascertain the exact amount of the illegal shipments; but the commercial interests of Mexico exerted such influence against this that the Audiencia desisted from the undertaking. Again Cadiz accuses the importation of Chinese silks into Nueva España of having ruined the silk industry in España; although those goods are so thin and poor that they are worn out even before the Manila galleon leaves Acapulco, they are so cheap and showy that they undersell the better goods from España even competing with the latter in Vera Cruz, where the Chinese goods are purchased by the traders of Habana, Puerto Rico, Cartagena, and other Spanish colonies; and all this is overlooked by the Spanish officials in high places, because they profit by this illegal traffic. If the king will prohibit the importation of silk woven with silver and gold, and "check the hand which Mexico moves at the command of Manila," the silk industry will be revived in España, its people will be kept from idleness and poverty, and foreign countries will no longer drain its resources. Cadiz desires Manila to content itself with the spice-trade, which is a staple and profitable line of commerce, and which Manila can carry on more cheaply and promptly than Spanish merchants can; the spices sent from España on Chacón's fleet were needed to supply the scarcity of them at that time, as the Manila trade had been interrupted temporarily; but if the latter be regular, such shipment from España could not occur again. From the year 1690, the indult ran from 50,000 to 74,000 pesos, on the basis of the 250,000 pesos allowed to the Manila trade; but it is evident that the duties ought now to amount to above 500,000 pesos, on the enormous quantities of Chinese silks that the galleon of 1,000 toneladas carries.]