the ports of España pass to foreign dominions, and from these to the infidels of the Orient." The aforesaid Company of Philipinas has obtained permission that in each ship sent out by its members (the number of vessels not being limited) they may convey, besides the goods, the amount of 500 pesos fuertes in silver money--more or less, according to the needs of their business--to be invested in Oriental goods, with freedom to change for gold any surplus that may be left of that capital. [6] This permission leads to the drain of much silver from the country, opens the door for great frauds, and is manifestly unfair to Manila if the latter is to be deprived of its China trade. As for the ruin of the silk industry in España, "the city of Sevilla itself openly confessed (in a memorial dated April 24, 1696) that the ruin of its looms and the deterioration of its commerce arose from the single cause of the manufactures which the French, English, and Dutch had, since the middle of the past century, introduced into their dominions, and from the lack of assiduous industry in the natives of these [kingdoms of España]; and that for this reason those peoples carried to their own countries our wools, in order to return them in the shape of cloths and other goods, which their industry was able to manufacture from those wools. The same thing occurs with the silks which (as we are experiencing) they are introducing into these kingdoms, [made] from the [raw] silk which they obtain here; and they sell in the Orient various stuffs and fabrics, with which usually the people of rank in these kingdoms are clothed; and such people in the Indias wear the goods which the merchants of España convey in fleets and galleons--as may be known by the books of the customs duties, in which appears all the above, and the increased amount of silken fabrics which the foreigners are introducing through the port of Cadiz, and others that open on the Mediterranean Sea." Cadiz is reminded that its commerce penetrates into Peru, Buenos Ayres, Honduras, and other regions which are forbidden to Manila; that it has no more successful fairs in Peru than in Nueva España (indeed, obtaining even larger profits in the latter country); notwithstanding the alleged ruinous competition of Manila; and that the contraband trade carried on in the Western Indias by the foreign industrial nations causes far more damage to Cadiz than does the small amount of trade allowed to Manila. Cadiz has made no complaint against the shipment by Manila of stuffs from India and spices, doubtless because the prohibition of these would injure the trade of the English [7] and the Dutch, from whom Manila buys those goods, and whom Cadiz favors and tries to enrich at the expense of the Philippine vassals of the crown, regardless of the injurious effects of such procedure on the propagation of the faith and the welfare of the former heathen who have been converted to it in the East. Manila asserts that the necessity