Every soldier, sailor, and officer was at liberty to disembark with a box containing goods of which the Philippine value should not exceed P30, in addition to his private effects. All hidden goods were to be confiscated, one-half to the Royal Treasury, one-fourth to the Judge intervening, and one-fourth to the informer; but, if such confiscated goods amounted to P50,000 in value, the Viceroy and Mexican Council were to determine the sum to be awarded to the Judge and the informer. If the shipment met a good market and realized more than 1,000,000 pesos, only 1,000,000 could be remitted in money, and the excess in duty-paid Mexican merchandise. If the shipment failed to fetch 1,000,000, the difference could not be sent in money for making new purchases. (The same restriction as in the decree of 1720.) The object of these measures was to prevent Mexicans supplying trading capital to the Philippines instead of purchasing Peninsula manufactures. It was especially enacted that all goods sent to Mexico from the Philippines should have been purchased with the capital of the Philippine shippers, and be their exclusive property without lien. If it were discovered that on the return journey of the galleon merchandise was carried to the Philippines belonging to the Mexicans, it was to be confiscated, and a fine imposed on the interested parties of three times the value, payable to the Royal Treasury, on the first conviction. The second conviction entailed confiscation of all the culprits' goods and banishment from Mexico for 10 years. The weights and measures of the goods shipped were to be Philippine, and, above all, wax was to be sent in pieces of precisely the same weight and size as by custom established. The Council for freight allotment in Manila was to comprise the Governor, the senior Magistrate, and, failing this latter, the Minister of the Supreme Court next below him; also the Archbishop, or in his stead the Dean of the Cathedral; an ordinary Judge, a Municipal Councillor, and _one merchant_ as Commissioner in representation of the eight who formed the _Consulado_ of merchants. The expulsion of the non-christian Chinese in 1755 (_vide_ p. 111) caused a deficit in the taxes of P30,000 per annum. The only exports of Philippine produce at this date were cacao, sugar, wax, and sapanwood. Trade, and consequently the Treasury, were in a deplorable state. To remedy matters, and to make up the above P30,000, the Government proposed to levy an export duty which was to be applied to the cost of armaments fitted out against pirates. Before the tax was approved of by the King some friars loaded a vessel with export merchandise, and absolutely refused to pay the impost, alleging immunity. The Governor argued that there could be no religious immunity in trade concerns. The friars appealed to Spain, and the tax was disapproved of; meantime, most of the goods and the vessel itself rotted pending the solution of the question by the Royal Indian Council.