and
cultivation of the silk ceased, and his Majesty would lose the said
one hundred thousand ducados. Besides, the said silk paying, as it
does, three hundred and two maravedis per libra--without reckoning
the tenth, or the forty per cent on the gross price at which it is
at once sold in the alcaicerias--as soon as it is sold, while there
would be less produced and sold, and the price of it would be lower,
the duties will be less. And since the silk of China does not pay more
than fifteen per cent of import tax and excise, because it is foreign,
his Majesty loses twenty-five per cent on each libra of the silk of
the kingdom of Granada. That silk is produced in less quantity by
the importation of that of China; and since our silk pays higher
duties than the foreign--either because of its excellent quality,
or because it is native, or for some other reason--that freedom from
duties ought to be extended to it rather than to the Chinese silk,
instead of burdening it with greater duties. These latter should be
imposed upon the Chinese silk, so that, less of it being imported
for that reason, less money would be taken from Nueva Espana to
Filipinas for its purchase; while more money would be brought to
these kingdoms. That would result in greater investments and cargoes,
and more silk would be produced in these kingdoms. For so little
silk has been produced in the kingdom of Granada for the last two
years, because of its little sale and value and its great cost, that
the duties from the revenues of their silk have been worth thirty
thousand ducados less each of those two years than they were worth
during the years before. Two signal losses have resulted from that,
and they will become greater every day, and more irreparable. The
first is that as so little silk is produced, and the producers have
left the leaves on the mulberry-trees, the trees have come to such a
pass that for lack of pruning and care they will be ruined in little
time and destroyed--so that when one may try to remedy them he will be
unable. The other is that the little silk that has been produced has
been of so little profit to the producers because of its diminished
value during this time--on account of the quantity of foreign silk
that has been imported and its better sale, because of the lower price
at which it has been sold--that the said producers and the holders
of the annuity grants have not had sufficient means to pay the said
annuities; and for the