who profit and those who lose pay on account of what they produce;
and they will tell how not only the commerce has not declined, but
also that rather, through its having increased so greatly, the danger
of losing the invested money results.

What their provinces can digest and assimilate, Sire, should be
exported to the Indias, and a limit should be set to the hope of
their increase, and endeavor should be made to preserve them in the
extremely flourishing condition which they reached; and if efforts
pass those limits, then, instead of causing the Indias to increase,
it will be a greater blow, whereby they will slip back more quickly
along the coast of decline.

Coming then to the particular matter, the question is one of
suppressing the commerce now carried on with the Philipinas Islands by
way of the South Sea. This may be advantageous to España in two ways:
in making the kingdom of Méjico absolutely dependent on España's
aid, without leaving it any other recourse: and in increasing the
proportions of their present trade by adding to that kingdom [_i.e._,
España] that commerce from those islands by way of the Ocean Sea,
[55] to which it is desired to direct the trade-route.

In the first place, it will be considered that Nueva-España passed
many years without any communication with the Philipinas, and that
the same will happen now if that commerce be taken away, although
at the outset there may be some ill-feeling among them; and that
the prevention of a thing so temporary, and in one province only,
ought not to over-balance what is of so different an importance, as
that España (the seat of your Majesty's monarchy) should have plenty
of money. For all that México sends to Manila will go to España,