racts to deliver them there. From
this it is easy to infer, that the company was infallibly exposed to
the harsh terms the respective contractors sought to impose upon them,
as well with regard to prices as qualities, unless, in many cases,
they preferred being left without the necessary assortments. Hence may
it, without the smallest exaggeration, be affirmed, that, summing up
all the surcharges under which the shipments left the port of Manila,
and comparing them with those which might have been sent direct from
the above-mentioned points, and without so extraordinary a detour
as the one prescribed by law, the difference that followed in the
prime cost of the cargos was not less than 80 per cent. The urgent
manner, however, in which the directors of the company did not
cease to deplore and complain of so evident a hardship, at length
had the desired effect, and after existing ten or twelve years, so
preposterous a system was successfully overthrown, and permission
obtained from the king for the establishment of Spanish factories in
the neighborhood of the China and India manufactures, as well as the
power of addressing shipments direct to those foreign dominions. The
enlightened policy of their respective governments did not allow them
to hesitate in giving a favorable reception to our factors and vessels,
and the purchases and shipments of Asiatic goods being thus realized
without the old obstructions, the Company was reasonably led to hope
being able soon to increase its operations, and progressively present
more satisfactory results to the shareholders, when those political
convulsions succeeding soon after, which have unhinged or destroyed
all the ordinary relations of trade, compelled them to abandon their
hopes, till the wished-for calm should be again restored.

[Temporary expedient of 1803.] In consequence of the new character
and route given to the commercial enterprises of the Company, as
authorized by a royal decree of July 12, 1803, the functions of
the Manila factors were reduced to the annual shipment of a cargo
of Asiatic goods to Peru, valued at $500,000, but only as long
as the war lasted, and till the expiration of the extraordinary
permits granted through the goodness of the king, and also to the
transmitting to China and Bengal of the specie brought from America,
and the collecting of certain quantities of indigo, sugar, or other
produce of the Islands, with a view to gain by reselling it in the
s