able to lade their ships with goods to the value of 250,000 pesos, the returns for which were 500,000 pesos, without assigning a definite number of piezas--in which time they paid for all kinds of duties 75,000 pesos, which was equivalent to thirty per cent on the cargo and fifteen per cent on the returns. That in the year 1702 their permission had been increased to 300,000 pesos of capital [invested], and 600,000 of returns, with the obligation of paying for the shipment of the latter a charge of two per cent. This had been punctiliously observed until the year 1717, when other quantities [of merchandise] had been shipped outside of the permitted amount, for the causes and reasons which would appear from the acts drawn up on account of this proceeding; and for what was thus shipped outside the permission duties had been paid at four per cent (which amounted to 365,000 pesos), and adding to this the six per cent of alcavala, [1] the duties were ten per cent, which was collected. That this regulation had been in vogue up to the year 1720, in which the Marqués de Valero had allowed to the Philipinos the lump payment of 100,000 pesos which before had been refused them, including in this amount all the dues which they must pay [to the royal treasury], and permitting to them, as before, the shipment of the 600,000 pesos of returns; and that, although this amount only was what they ought to embark in virtue of the permission, they carried other funds also (and not a few)--the reason being that many persons were resolving at that time to become citizens of the islands, and, as consequently their wealth must be conveyed thither, the papers had been given to them for doing so, in virtue of which they embarked their funds, paying on them ten per cent. That for the last ten years many sums of money had gone to Philipinas outside of the permitted amount, on various warrants, for which orders had been previously given, regarding which the bureau of accounts could supply information; but, as in this matter the officials acted independently of the castellan, he had been unable to take cognizance of those transactions." The royal officials of Acapulco--who, with the castellan, were at that time in the City of Mexico--advised the viceroy not to make any change in the permission for the next annual galleon; and gave as their opinion that, comparing the shipments of merchandise, returns therefrom, and duties paid to the treasury, by Manila in the last forty years, if in those islands there had not been an increase of their commerce, at least it had not declined. [2] The officials regarded the present amount of trade granted to Manila as far in excess of what it had before (on which earlier amount the islands had been able to support themselves), and the great withdrawal of money from Nueva España as injurious to the commerce of both that country and España; and they advised that the permission be reduced to 2,750 piezas of