Читать книгу The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. Volume 27 of 55 - Unknown - Страница 28
Grau y Monfalcon’s Informatory Memorial of 1637
Number 21. Estimation of the commerce of the Orient, and its condition
ОглавлениеThat commerce, then, consists, according to what the Filipinas can enjoy of it, in different products and trades because of the difference of the kingdoms or islands with which they do or can communicate. And inasmuch as the explanation of this commerce is the chief part of the matter; and so that one may see in what estimation it has always been held, and what it deserves, and that there is no other medium by which to maintain this crown except by the conservation of India and the Filipinas: we will here describe, as briefly as possible, the times through which that trade has run, and its varying conditions up to the present. Now it all belongs to the two royal crowns of Castilla and Portugal, but it is usurped in part from both by the Dutch, whose only aim is to secure possession of it; and this they will attain on that day when either of the two extremes presented [for which these—MS.] which are maintained shall fail.23
23
This sentence is very blindly worded, but perhaps indicates, by anticipation, the point made in section 40, post—where India and the Philippines are mentioned as the “extremes” of the Spanish empire in the Orient. Or it may refer to the alternative presented near the end of section 2.
