COMMERCE. 



Ill 



at fifteen thousand tons, for the consumption of Peru and 

 Terra Fh'ma. In 1740 it was reduced to two thousand, the 

 contraband trade having absorbed thirteen thousand tons. 

 The facihty with which the opulent merchant was enabled to 

 engross any particular branch of commerce, rendered him the 

 arbiter of the price, which he augmented to a degree that ne- 

 cessity alone was allowed to regulate. For a quintal of iron 

 a hundred piastres were exa6ted ; for the same quantity of 

 steel, a hundred and fifty ; and this monstrous disproportion 

 was observed relatively to the other produ6lions and efFe6ts. 

 The returns to the mother country were proportionate to the 

 small share of influence and interest she had in this commerce : 

 in the space of twenty-six years, from 17 14 to 1739, thirty- 

 four millions only of piastres were registered. During the 

 whole of that time, not more than four armadas put to sea ; 

 although the regulation imported, that the galleons should be 

 dispatched annually, or within the limit of eighteen months, 

 at the latest. This delay became a new stimulus to the revi- 

 val of the contraband trade ; and the forty-third article of the 

 assiento, by which the English were allowed to send annually 

 a ship of five hundred tons to trade with the Spanish colonies, 

 became so prejudicial to Peru, that a remedy was scarcely to 

 be expe6led. 



It was partly found, in 1748, by the permission to navigate, 

 by Cape Horn, in vessels named register ships, by which the 

 relations with the mother country became more dire£l and fre- 

 quent, at the same time that the destructive combinations of 

 foreigners, established on the slow and methodical saihng of 

 the galleons, were frustrated by the uncertainty of the depar- 

 ture, as well as of the number of the ships. Since that time, 



whatever 



