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and Porto Rico, which are the only islands that enjoy a free commerce; and the same thing would occur in all the other Spanish possessions, if the same means were adopted, to grant them a free trade. They gain by their trade with France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, hut lose with England, China and Bengal. The balance in favour of England is not less, one year with another, than 12 millions of dollars; and calculating the amount of the balance in their favour with other nations, to cover this loss and that which they suffer with China and Bengal, their general loss cannot be less than 7 millions. It may be said, as a certainty, that the English are the only people who gain by their commerce with the Anglo-Americans: the payments which the latter make to the former are in coin; and by this means England opens a certain channel by which she receives all the gold and silver, which the Anglo-Americans derive from Spanish America. And she entertains neither jealousy nor inquietude about the commerce which they carry on with those possessions, since they export to them nothing but English goods, or such produce as the English have not; and because the most precious returns, gold and silver, and the raw materials of the greatest importance, go to supply her markets, and the manufactures from her workshops go to continue this trade, so favourable to the interests of her nation and her government.
