The official there mentioned was Don Antonio Alvarez de Abreu; at the beginning of the work he mentions in a prefatory article the reasons for its compilation, and the plan he has followed; he claims to have reproduced accurately the documents presented therein, and to have regarded the interests of both sides in the controversy then being waged over the Philippine commerce. One hundred copies of the Extracto were printed.
[2] Thus in the original; but in the following expansion of these points eight of them are enumerated, indicating an oversight on the part of the compiler. The sixth is there stated as the renown and profit accruing to the crown from the victories gained by its Philippine subjects; the seventh, the aid given by them to both crowns; the eighth, their protection of Chinese commerce.
[3] According to Crawfurd (Dict. Ind. Islands, p. 38) this is the form, in the native languages, of the name that Europeans write Bantam, applied to the extreme western province of Java, and to an important seaport town in its northwest extremity. Most of the inhabitants of this province are Sundas, but along the coasts there is considerable intermixture with Javanese and other Malayan peoples. The port of Bantan was an important commercial center long before the arrival there of Europeans.
[4] i.e., Hindostan (see VOL. XVII, p. 252). The grave accent is here used in the word Mogòr, simply as following the usage of the Extracto, which throughout prints the grave instead of the acute accent.
[5] St. Martin, one of the Antilles, was a resort for French pirates and Dutch smugglers until 1638, when it was captured by the Spaniards. It was afterward recovered from them, and in 1648 was formally divided between the French and Dutch—a status that still prevails.
[6] The alcabala, an excise duty collected on all sales of commodities, was derived from the Moors, and was more or less imposed in Spain from the year 1342 on. It was introduced in the American colonies in 1574, and for more than two centuries was a rich source of income for the Spanish crown and a heavy tax on the colonists. The rate was at first two per cent, but afterward this was doubled and trebled; and it was levied on every transfer of goods, taxing property over and over again. See Bancroft’s Mexico, iii, pp. 658, 659; and Recopilación leyes de Indias, lib. viii, tit. xiii, and lib. ix, tit. xlv, ley lxvi.
[7] Raynal thus describes Acapulco, in his History of Settlements and Trade in Indies (Justamond’s translation, London, 1783), iii, pp. 378, 379: “The port of Acapulco where the vessel arrives, hath two inlets, separated from each other by a small island: the entrance into them in the day is by means of a sea-breeze, and the sailing out in the night-time is effected by a land-breeze. It is defended only by a bad fort, fifty soldiers, forty-two pieces of cannon, and thirty-two of the corps of artillery. It is equally extensive, safe, and commodious. The bason which forms this beautiful harbor is surrounded by lofty mountains, which are so dry, that they are even destitute of water. Four hundred families of Chinese, Mulattoes, and Negroes, which compose three companies of militia, are the only persons accustomed to breathe the air of this place, which is burning, heavy, and unwholesome. The number of inhabitants in this feeble and miserable colony is considerably increased upon the arrival of the galleons, by the merchants from all the provinces of Mexico, who come to exchange their silver and their cochineal, for the spices, muslins, china, printed linens, silks, perfumes, and gold works of Asia. At this market, the fraud impudently begun in the Old World, is as impudently completed in the New. The statutes have limited the sale to 2,700,000 livres, and it exceeds 10,800,000 livres. All the money produced by these exchanges should give ten per cent. to the government: but they are deprived of three-fourths of the revenue which they ought to collect from their customs, by false entries.” This passage is appropriated bodily—with a few changes, and an important omission—in Malo de Luque’s Establecimientos ultramarinos (Madrid, 1790), v, p. 220; and no credit is given by him to Raynal.
On the map of Acapulco in Bellin’s Atlas maritime (Paris, 1764), t. ii, p. 86, appears the following naïve item in the legend at the side: “Two trees, to which the galleon from Manila attaches a cable;” these trees are located directly in front of the tiny “city,” and between two redoubts.
[8] Talinga is defined by Noceda and Sanlucar (Vocab. lengua Tagala, third ed., Manila, 1860) as manta de Ilocos (“Ilocos blanket”). It is apparently the same as terlinga, used by Mallat and Malo de Luque; and tarlinga, later in this document.
[9] Encarnación (Dicc. Bisaya-Español, Manila, 1885) says, after defining the word as here: “The word lompot eminently signifies ‘piece;’ and the pieces in which the native women weave all their fabrics are regularly eight varas long and one wide.”