heir entry in
the port and river of Manila; but some of the first are subject to
the most unjust of all exactions, that is, to an arbitrary tax and
to the obligation of being retailed out on board the vessels in which
they have been brought down, and deliverable only to persons bearing
a written order, signed by the sitting members of the municipal
corporation. Among this class of articles may be mentioned the coco
of Cebu and the wax and oil of the Bisayas, which are rated as objects
of the first necessity.

[Undervaluation of galleon goods.] With regard to the respective
duties on the cargo annually dispatched by the merchants of Manila
to New Spain, the practice of galleon is tolerably well regulated. An
extreme latitude is given to the moderate rates at which it is ordered
to value the goods contained in the manifest, by which means these are
frequently put down at only one-half of their original prime cost;
the commission to frame the scale of valuations which is to be in
force for five years, after which time it is renewed, being left
to three merchants, and made subject to the revision of the king's
attorney-general (fiscal) and the approbation of the governor;
consequently, such being the nature of the tariff on which these
operations are founded, the 33 1/3% to which the royal duties amount
on the $500,000 stipulated in the permit, does not, in fact, affect
the shipper beyond the rate of 15 per cent, in consequence of the
great difference between the prime cost and valuation of the articles
corresponding to the permit; or, what is the same thing, between
the $500,000 nominal value, and $1,100,000 or $1,200,000, the real
amount of the cargo in question. The most remarkable circumstance,
however, is, that the officers of the revenue in Acapulco collect
the above-mentioned 33 1/3% in absolute conformity to the Manila
valuation, and not according to the value of the goods in America,
and without any other formality than a comparison of the cargo with
the ship's papers. In honor of truth, it ought to be further observed
that, although the Manila merchant by this means seeks to exempt
himself from the part of the enormous duties with which it has been
attempted to paralyze the only commercial intercourse he carries on
with New Spain, in every other respect connected with this operation,
he acts in a sufficiently legal manner, and if at their return those
vessels have been in the habit of bringing back near a million