74
JOHN VILLIERS
Originally the Spanish had hoped to gain a share of the Moluccan spice trade from Manila, but the Portuguese and later the Dutch were too strongly entrenched and the trade with China soon became virtually the Philippines' only economic resource. Silk and other Chinese goods were brought to Manila at first by Chinese junks and after about 1604 also by Portuguese ships from Macau. In the 1630s the annual value of imports from Macau to Manila averaged about 1.5 million silver pesos. At the end of the 16th century between 40 and 50 large seagoing junks were still coming yearly to Manila from Fukien bringing Chinese goods, which they sold for Mexican and Peruvian silver pesos and rials-of-eight.20 In 1573, for example, the two galleons bound for Acapulco carried 712 bolts of Chinese silk and 22,300 pieces of fine china gilt and other porcelain wares.21
Although the Manila merchants gained enormous profits from this trade, the government of the colony had an annual deficit of between 85 to 350 thousand pesos. The Mexico treasury made up this deficit with silver bullion, much of which found its way into the coffers of the Chinese merchants. This tremendous drain on Spanish resources led to various proposals being put forward to abandon the Philippines altogether. The merchants of Seville, who enjoyed a monopoly of the trans-Atlantic carrying trade with Nueva España, and the Andalusian textile manufacturers, who feared that Mexico and Peru would be flooded with cheap Chinese silks, were especially hostile to the Philippine colony. In the end, they succeeded only in having the trade restricted to the Manila-Acapulco route, the trade between Mexico and Peru abolished, and the value of the goods to be shipped annually from Manila to Acapulco restricted to 250,000 pesos, which was deemed a large enough quota to maintain the Philippine colony and small enough to be easily absorbed in Mexico. In practice, however, the value of the goods shipped from Manila was closer to 2 million pesos a year, the quantity of merchandise loaded being determined not by royal decree but by the amount of cargo space available on the galleons. The Chinese packers were extremely skilled at cramming goods into the galleons, with resulting overlading, which caused many shipwrecks. Individual seamen were also each allowed to carry one chest, which, as one contemporary wryly observed, had a most expansive capacity.22 Space on the galleons was bought by a few wealthy entrepreneurs and by groups such as the cathedral chapter and charitable foundations such as orphanages and hospitals, which often amassed enough