ce I have been able to acquire during my long
residence there. In conformity thereto, I am inclined to believe,
that the total amount of capital belonging to and employed in the
trade of the Philippine Islands, does not at present exceed two
and a half million dollars, with evident signs of rapid decline, if
the merchants do not in time abandon the ruinous systems of chiefly
carrying on their speculations with money obtained at interest.

[Large sums hoarded.] The two and a half million dollars thus
attributed to the merchants, form, however, the smaller part of the
funds distributed among the other classes, and the total amount of
the circulating medium of the colony might be considered an object
sufficiently worthy of being ascertained, owing to the great light
it would throw on the present state of the inhabitants; but it is in
vain to attempt any calculation of the kind, at least without the aid
of data possessing a certain degree of accuracy. The only thing that
can be affirmed is, that during the period of more than two hundred
and fifty years which have elapsed since the conquest, the ingress of
specie into the Philippine Islands has been constant. Their annual
ships have seldom come from New Spain without bringing considerable
sums in return, and if some of them have been lost, many others,
without being confined to the one million of dollars constituting
the ordinary amount of the permit, have not unfrequently come back
with triple that sum; for which reason there are ample grounds of
judging the estimates correct, which fix the total importation of
dollars, during the whole of that long period of years, to be equal
to four hundred millions. It may further be observed that, as in
the Sangley mestizos economy and avarice compete with intelligence
and activity in accumulating wealth and as they are scattered, among
the principal islands, and in possession of the best lands and the
most lucrative business of the interior, there are ample motives for
presuming that these industrious and sagacious people have gradually,
although incessantly, amassed immense sums in specie; but it would
be impossible to point out their amount, distribution, or the secret
places in which they are hoarded.

[Pious and charitable funds' capital.] The assemblage of pious
legacies, temporalities, and other funds and property placed under
the care of several administrative committees, for purposes as well
religious as charitable, constit