stract proportion of the buyers and sellers, but in the greater or less quantity of the productions. The number of importers has been augmented in a very considerable degree; but the consumption having been invariably the same, the competition they have entered into has obliged them to endeavour to lighten themselves, at a loss even, of a heavy burthen which they could not transport elsewhere. Let the importations be once brought to the level of the annual produce, and there will cease to be any complaints against the useful and profitable system of a free trade.
The loud clamours which have been raised against the Company of the Philippine Islands, and against the deputation of the Five Corporations of Madrid, have been founded on a persuasion that they have been destructive of the commerce of private individuals, and have absorbed all that the viceroyalty can maintain, by the excessive importations of their immense funds, and by the facility with which they can sell at a more commodious and reduced price.
It is agreed on all hands, that the advancement and prosperity of great companies have in general been attended by the destruction of private trade, which finds it impracticable to enter into a competition with such powerful bodies, capable of undertaking the greatest enterprizes, and of supporting the repeated losses to which commerce is subjected by its variations. It is also true, that several of these companies have resorted to the odious, unjust, and arbitrary proceeding, of lowering the sales to such a degree as to occasion a sacrifice of a part of the capital advanced on the purchases. The private merchant has thus been defeated in his intention of trading to the same destination; and, although the countries in which this has been
