[18] “The merchants and even all the residents of Manila during the epoch of the Acapulco (trade), firmly believed that the interruption of its voyages would be the infallible and total ruin of the colony, and that upon them depended even the maintenance of the inhabitants of the farms. However, experience has demonstrated the error in which they were.” (Mas, Ibid., pp. 2–3.)

After giving a table of imports and exports for 1810, Mas says: “From this statement it is seen that at that epoch the commerce of the Philippines was reduced mostly to receiving funds from New Spain, and, in return, remitting articles of China and India; that the importation of foreign goods consumed in the Philippines amounted to 900,000 pesos, and the exportation of the products of the country, such as sugar, indigo, hide, etc., did not amount to 500,000 pesos. The gains, therefore, from that traffic, for which Manila was only a port of exchange, were divided between the merchants who had the monopoly of the galleon, but the wealth of the territory received but small advantages from it.” (Ibid.)

[19] Mas, Ibid., p. 4.

[20] Azcarraga, p. 18.

[21] An item in the memoir published by the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (Manila, 1860), containing a list of its achievements, is to the effect that on August 8, 1834, “abacá” was exported for the first time. (See Bl. and Rb., Vol. 52, p. 317.)

Azcarraga (p. 19) gives the following figures for hemp:

Piculs exported.
184083,790
1845102,490
1850123,410
1853221,518
1857327,574
1858412,502

[22] Azcarraga (p. 167) gives the following figures for Iloilo:

Foreign Countries.Manila.
Piculs of Sugar.Piculs ofsugar.
18599,34477,488
186040,17672,592
186144,25629,312
1862102,46498,912
1863170,83280,000

[23] Azcarraga, pp. 168–169.