uing the trade which they have begun to
introduce in that city [of Manila]. These articles were presented to
Don Juan Nino de Tavora, and afterward to Don Juan Cerezo de Salamanca,
governor of those islands--who, having examined them, wrote his opinion
to his Majesty, and how advisable it was to suppress the trade of
Macan with the said city of Manila, as is apparent by the said letter._

Captain Joseph de Navada Alvarado, regidor of this city of Manila,
represented in this city council that, as was public and well known,
from the year six hundred and nineteen until the present of thirty-two,
the Portuguese inhabitants of Macan have come to this city in various
vessels, without fail in all the years above mentioned, laden with
Chinese merchandise, in order to sell it here; and that, with their
said coming, it seems that they have obtained possession of this trade,
which is so strictly prohibited by various royal decrees. On account
of that trade they have waxed rich, while the inhabitants of this
community now find themselves in their so wretched present condition,
by the great sales which have been generally made to them; and because
with the said trade that which the Sangleys had by coming yearly to
this said city, with the greatest abundance of goods, has ceased. It
appears that necessity has always obliged them to have to buy from
the said Portuguese. Notwithstanding that the prices have usually
been very high, the profit which the inhabitants of this said city
have made in Nueva Espana has been very slight; and at times it has
been little more than the prime cost of the goods here, besides the
heavy expenses and duties which they carry, both in these islands
and in the said Nueva Espana. For that reason, he feels that it is
very advisable for the preservation of the said inhabitants and of
this community that the said trade of the Portuguese cease, and that
they be ordered not to come to this city; for this is permitted by
the royal will, under the penalties expressed in the said decrees in
which he orders it, to which we refer, since there are so many and
so fundamental reasons as the following.

The first, that the said Portuguese of Macan having tried in years past
to open this trade, and having come to this city with merchandise to
sell it there, this city council, seeing the damage that might grow
from it (which is the damage bewailed today), opposed the said coming,
and made various decisions in regard to