215-221. [It was supposed that the foregoing decree had settled the question of the Manila-Acapulco trade "for many years;" but on November 27, 1735, the king sent to his Council a memorial by Don Joseph Lopez Pintado, consul and deputy of the commerce of Cadiz, and an informatory report which had been made on that subject by the lieutenant-general of marine, Don Manuel Lopez Pintado; on these papers the king asked for the advice and opinions of the Council. The memorial of Cadiz states the two main points of the controversy: the first is, whether or not the commerce of España is injured by the inclusion of the Chinese silks and ribbons in the cargo of the Manila galleon. Cadiz has long claimed that this was so, while Manila answered that that trade was necessary for the maintenance of the islands, "and for the propagation of the holy gospel in them"--which argument, Cadiz says, "has always been the Achilles to oppose the just representations of the commerce of España." The second point is whether, if the silks are prohibited to Manila traders, any goods of equal value remain to them by which they can secure the returns which they claim to need. The first point is stated as in previous remonstrances, that the Manila trade in Chinese silks has ruined both the sale and the manufacture of Spanish silks, especially since the execution of the decree of 1724; the latter goods can now find no market in America, for the Chinese silks have made their way not only into Nueva España but into Peru, the colonies on the northern coast of South America, and all the Windward Islands, "nor can their importation be checked by all the efforts and vigilance of the officials." Manila has probably abused the royal liberality and has transgressed the limits of its permission; for the deputies and appraisers there have valued the goods so low at Manila that at Acapulco they obtain for them three or four times the amount permitted to them by royal decree--for confirmation of which statement is cited the report made by order of the viceroy of Mexico, on August 23, 1731, by Don Francisco de Fagoaga, one of the leading merchants of Mexico, who was a witness of this infraction of law. It is these abuses of the Manila permission which aroused the viceroy to issue the orders of 1732, hoping to check the illegal excess therein. Cadiz now offers to surrender to Manila "forever the traffic and transportation of all the cinnamon, pepper, and cloves which the kingdom of Nueva España can consume," as also all the trade in chintzes of various qualities, and in silk raw and spun; in these Manila ought to find sufficient compensation for giving up the silks, but, even if it does not, its losses cannot compare with those of España from the permission given to Manila to trade in those goods, and the interests of the former ought to be preferred. General Pintado's informatory report makes a bitter complaint of the frauds and infringements in the Manila permission to trade.