whole of the coasting trade is in the hands of the Indians,
or Mestizos of Chinese descent, called _Sangleys_, although several
Spaniards and European Mestizos at Manilla also own a better class of
ships than those described, constantly engaged in going and returning
from the provinces.

Still, from some cause or other, they do not appear to carry the on
trade so successfully as the provincial shipowners, most of whom have
only one or two small vessels, which they keep constantly running
between their native place and Manilla, and whose sole business
it is, after despatching either of them, to purchase up from the
cultivators of the soil, such small lots of their produce as are
cheap at the time, such as sugar, rice, &c., which they are able to
do at greatly lower terms, when buying them by little at a time, than
it would be possible for the agent of a merchant in Manilla to do,
whose operations it would probably be necessary should be conducted
upon a more extensive and quicker scale, and whose knowledge of the
district and of the vendors could seldom be equal to that of a native
Sangley, or Indian born among them.

In consequence of all the produce being originally purchased by small
lots at a time, it is of very variable quality; and on a cargo of
Muscovado sugar, for instance, being purchased from one of these
traders by a foreign merchant of Manilla, for exportation, it is
perfectly essential to open the whole of the bags in which it has
come up to Manilla from the provinces, and to empty their contents
into one great heap, which causes it to get well mingled together,
and ensures the requisite regularity of sample, after which it has
to be rebagged and shipped off to the foreign vessels that may be
waiting to receive it in the bay.

Of course the expense of all this is very considerable, for not
only is there all the labour and cost of bags, &c., incurred twice,
but there is the freight and insurance by the province vessel, which
has brought it up to Manilla, to be added to the natural cost of the
sugar at the place of its growth and manufacture.

All these restrictions on trade affect the quantity of sugar sold
by the native planters, and in a very material degree depress the
agricultural activity of the people, who suffer from them. But probably
there are no greater sufferers from such restrictive regulations than
the Government which so ignorantly sustains or has imposed them. So
little anxious have they b