visitor,
Licentiate Don Francisco de Rojas, tried to effect it, when the said
inhabitants were firm and were resolved not to appraise, register,
or lade anything in the ships, which were all ready to sail to Nueva
Espana. Thereupon the said visitor thought it advisable and necessary
to repeal the said enforcement. Although the inhabitants, on that
occasion, because of the great pressure exerted and the advantageous
reasons put forward by the visitor, offered to aid with a gift of
four thousand pesos, it was with the said condition that it was to
be for only that one time, and with the said condition that nothing
was to be said of the said collection.

Seventh, the great damage and injury that would assuredly follow to
the royal treasury if the said commerce were abandoned; for since
the said three per cent that is first collected as a customs duty,
and the other three per cent imposed anew in the said year of six
hundred and eleven, amount and are worth a very great sum and number
of pesos annually to the royal treasury, that sum will not increase
with the imposition of the said two per cent, but, on the contrary,
both the one and the other duty will be lost; or at least they will
be reduced to a very great loss, damage, and diminution of the royal
treasury, and the reason therefor is very clear and evident. For
in every year, and in that of the imposition of the two per cent of
which we are treating, the duty amounted to about four thousand; and
to that amount now, without the imposition of the said two per cent,
all the inhabitants of the said city, both rich and poor, trade and
traffic. By that means are caused the said customs duties not only at
departure from the said city of Manila, but at entrance into the said
City of Mexico, and on their returns afterward, from the investments,
and on the kinds of merchandise that are sent back by the same ports
and places to be traded at the said city of Manila. For since the
number of those who traffic is large, the said duties which are
caused and paid are also large. But if the said two per cent be put
in force, although it may be stated that some of the said inhabitants
will continue to trade, they would be very few; and the trade would
be reduced to those who are richest and those with most capital, who
are not many. But among all the others who are not rich, money and
capital would fail, and they would refuse to [trade] and could not
risk their little capital without ga