ame market. Consequently, the moment things return to their pacific
and ordinary course, will be the period when the necessity of the
future existence of this establishment will cease, or at least,
when the propriety will be evident of its reform or assimilation to
the other commission houses, carrying on trade in Vera Cruz, Mexico,
etc., which, not being hired establishments, do not create expenses
when they cease to transact business.

[Competition of foreign merchants.] Against a measure of this kind
it would be useless to allege, that, "by the exclusive privilege to
introduce spirits and European effects into the colony, the Company
has contracted the obligation of always keeping it properly supplied;
that their very institution had for the basis the general improvement
of the Islands, and in order duly to comply with these duties, it
becomes indispensably necessary to keep up the present expensive
establishment;" for, in the first place, in order, to render it
incumbent on the company to introduce an indefinite quantity of
European articles, it previously would be necessary to provide a vent
for them, and this can never be the case, unless the exclusion of all
competitors in the market is rigorously carried into effect. As things
now are, the North Americans, English, French, and every other nation
that wishes, openly usurped this privilege, by constantly inundating
the Islands with spirits and all kinds of effects, and it is very
evident that this same abuse which authorizes the infraction of the
above privilege, if in that light it could in any way be considered,
totally exonerates the company from all obligations by them contracted
under a different understanding. Besides, the circumstances which
have taken place since the publication of the royal decree, creating
the above establishment into a corporate body, in the year 1785,
have entirely changed the order established in this respect. In the
first place, the port of Manila has been opened to foreign nations,
in consequence of the disinterested representations of the company
itself, and for the direct advantage of general trade; nor was it
necessary to prevent our new guests from abusing the facilities thus
granted to them, and much less to confine them to the mere introduction
of Asiatic goods, the original plea made use of. In the second, as
soon as the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands became familiar with
the more useful and elegant objects of convenie