een years while the Sangleys had the trade in
that city--from the year one thousand six hundred and six until that
of one thousand six hundred and eighteen--they paid in duties to your
Majesty, 574,627 pesos and six tomins; and that in another thirteen
years while the said Portuguese of Macan have had the said trade, they
have paid only 90,041 pesos. Figuring one period against the other,
the royal treasury has had a shortage of 483,986 pesos and four tomins,
a considerable quantity in only thirteen years. And, in order that
this truth may be apparent to your Majesty, the writer presents the
said certification of the annual amounts of the said duties, for both
the thirteen years of the Portuguese and the thirteen of the Chinese.

[He also invites] consideration of the fact that the purpose of the
said royal decree of 593 is subverted and violated by the commerce
which the Portuguese of Macan carry on in China in order to take the
merchandise by way of retail to the said city of Manila; for the said
purpose declared in the said royal decree is that the said merchandise
of China shall enter into the said Manila through the hands of the said
Chinese, and at their own account and risk, as the said decree says,
without any other persons being authorized to meddle in it at all,
or any merchants save the said Chinese. Thus the said violation is
manifest, since the said Portuguese are the ones who carry and deliver
the merchandise in the said city, by means of the said commerce which
they have in China. Without that it would be impossible to take them
to Manila, or to violate the said royal decree. Since they are not
deserving of greater favor or benefit than the inhabitants of the
said city--in whom concur so many merits and services, as is well
known, and to whom the said commerce is denied by the said decree
of 593--nor is there any cause or reason why the said Portuguese,
who can not urge the said services, and who only think of the said
retailing of goods and of their own interest and greed, should be
permitted to trade; he petitions and beseeches your Majesty to be
pleased to have a second decree of like tenor to that of the year 593
issued, so that it may be observed and obeyed exactly, as is stated
therein. In it also should be included the case above mentioned, or
it should be ordered anew that the said Portuguese shall not conduct
or continue the said commerce in the said city--at least making it
an offense to carry t