ceeding--having
even requested and received letters of excommunication, which have
been read and published in the churches--yet it has not been learned
that these have been sufficient to prevent it. This is verified by the
unlading of the flagship "Santa Maria Magdalena," which was despatched
from the port of Cavite in these islands in the first part of August
of the past year, six hundred and thirty-one, for Nueva Espana,
but whose voyage did not take place, because of the disaster that
happened. Through that mishap it became known what the Portuguese of
Macan had embarked in it, as can be related by Captain Andres Lopez
de Azaldiqui, depositary-general of this court, who was present at
the discharge of cargo with a commission from this city council.

The tenth is, that what the ships bring from Macan is only silks,
in bundles and in fabrics. If they have brought any cotton cloth
needed by the poor, each piece of cloth has been sold at three or
three and one-half pesos. The same price is received for one cate
of sewing thread, and a dish of average quality sells for one real;
and notwithstanding that they bring but little of this for the supply
of this community, they have always sold the said articles at the
prices quoted, because of reducing the cargo of the said ships to
the said silks and stuffs, on account of the profits arising from
such freights. The ships give little or no place for the lading of
cotton cloth and other wares needed so badly by the poor, because of
their volume and of the little profit made from such cargoes. Such
things are also needed by those who are not poor; and even a single
ship of those usually brought by the Sangleys from China to this city
fills the land with the said common goods, which are so necessary,
as can be understood; and the poor are supplied with these by the
convenience of their prices, which are very low. They are still
lower when a number of ships come, as was formerly the case. That
is verified by the few which have come with the said goods for some
years past, so that these articles have been valued at prices so low
as the fourth part, and less, of the prices at which they have been
sold by the said Portuguese, as has been stated.

The eleventh is, that it would not have been any trouble for the
Chinese to come to engage in this trade with a quantity of goods--as
they did before the Portuguese represented to them the dangers of
enemies or the other things aforesaid--i