t difficulties,
particularly at times when the Acapulco ship is fitting out, for
although she is considered as a vessel of war, and commanded by
officers of the royal navy, the plan of her equipment is so singular,
that in addition, she requires the extra aid of one chief mate,
and three under ones.

[Royal Phillipine company.] The various modifications this corporate
body has successively experienced, have, in great measure, changed
the essence of its original constitution, and the remonstrances of
its directors, founded on the experience of a long series of years, at
length induced the government at home to sanction alterations dictated
by existing circumstances. The project of raising these Islands
from the neglected state in which they were, and in some measure to
place them in contact with the mother country, accompanied by a wish
to give a new and great impulse to the various branches of industry
which constitute the importance of a colony, could not have been more
laudable; but, as was afterwards seen, the instrument employed was
not adequate to the object in view. At the same time that the company
were charged to promote, and, by means of their funds, to vivify the
agriculture and industry of these provinces, the necessary powers
and facilities to enable them to reap the fruits of their sacrifices
were withheld. The protection granted to this establishment, did not
go beyond a general recommendation in favor of its enterprises, and,
in short, far from enjoying the exclusive preponderance obtained at
their commencement by all the other Asiatic companies, that of the
Philippine Islands labored under particular disadvantages.

[Local progress under adverse conditions.] Notwithstanding an
organization so imperfect, scarcely had the agents of the new
Company arrived at Manila, when they distributed through the country
their numerous dependents, commissioned to encourage the natives
by advances of money. They established subaltern factories in the
Provinces of Ilocos, Bataan, Cavite, and Camarines; purchased lands;
delivered out agricultural implements; founded manufacturies of cotton
cloths; contracted for the crops of produce at very high prices;
offered rewards and, in short, they put in motion every partial
resources they were able to avail themselves of and their limited
means allowed. It would be extremely easy for me, in this place,
to enter a particular enumeration of the important services of this
kind ren