xpenses of the goods manufactured increased in the same proportion,
under such evident and great disadvantages; for which reason, far from
being able to compete with those brought from China and British India,
they only acquire estimation in the interior, when wanted to supply
the place of the latter, or in cases of accidental scarcity.

[Scanty exports.] In a word, the only manufactured articles annually
exported from the Philippine Islands are eight to twelve thousand
pieces exports of light sail cloth, two hundred thousand pounds of
abaca cordage assorted, and six hundred carabao hides and deer skins,
which can scarcely be considered in a tanned state/ for, although the
Royal Company, from the time of their establishment, long continued to
export considerable quantities of dimities, calicos, stripes, checks,
and coverlids, as well as other cotton and silk goods, it was more
with a view to stimulate the districts of Ilocos to continue in the
habit of manufacturing, and thus introduce among the inhabitants of
that province a taste for industry, than the expectation of gain by
the sale of this kind of merchandise either in Spain or any of the
sections of America. At length, wearied with the losses experienced by
carrying on this species of mercantile operations, without answering
the principal object in view, they resolved, for the time being,
to suspend ventures attended with such discouraging circumstances.

[Need of encouragement.] Notwithstanding so many impediments, it
would not, however, be prudent in the government entirely to abandon
the enterprise, and lose sight of the advantages the country offers,
or indeed, to neglect turning the habitual facilities of the natives
to some account. Far from there existing any positive grounds for
despairing of the progress of manufacturing industry, it may justly
be presumed that, whenever the sovereign, by adopting a different line
of policy, shall allow the unlimited and indistinct settlement of all
kinds of foreign colonists, and grant them the same facilities and
protection enjoyed by national ones, they will be induced to flock to
the Philippine Islands in considerable numbers, lured by the hope of
accumulating fortunes in a country that presents a thousand attractions
of every kind. Many, no doubt, will preferably devote themselves
to commerce, others to agricultural undertakings and also to the
pursuits of mining, but necessarily some will turn their attention
and em