favorable variations in the respective markets, without brokers and even without regular books he seems to carry on his profession on no one fixed principle, and to have acquired his routine of business from mere habit and vague custom.  His contracts are made out on stamped paper, and his bills or promissory notes no other than long and diffuse writings or bonds, of which the dates and amounts are kept more in the shape of bundles than by any due entry on his books; and what at once gives the most clear idea of this irregularity is the singular fact that, for the space of twenty-five and possibly fifty years, only one bankrupt has presented the state of his affairs to the Board of Trade, in conformity to the regulations prescribed by the general Statutes of Bankruptcy, whereas, numbers of cases have occurred in which these merchants have wasted or secreted the property of others with impunity.  Hence have arisen those irregularities, subterfuges and disputes, in a word, the absence of all mercantile business carried on in a scrupulously punctual and correct manner.  Hence, also, have followed that distrust and embarrassment with which commercial operations are attended, as well as the difficulty of calculating their fluctuations.  On the other hand, as in order to send off an expedition by the annual ship to Acapulco, the previous consent of the majority of the incorporated merchants is necessary, before this point is decided, months are passed in intrigues and disputes, the peremptory period arrives, and if the articles wanted are in the market, they are purchased up with precipitation and paid for with the monies the shippers have been able to obtain at an interest from the administrators of pious and charitable funds.  In this manner, compelled to act almost always without plan or concert, yet accustomed to gain in the market of Acapulco, notwithstanding so many impediments and the exorbitant premiums paid for the money lent, these merchants follow the strange maxim of risking little or no property of their own; and unaware, or rather, disregarding the importance of economy in the expenses and regularity of their general method of living, it is not possible they can ever accumulate large fortunes, or form solid and well-accredited houses.

[Merchants discouraged.] Thus oppressed by a system, as unjust as it is absurd, and conducting their affairs in the way above described, it is not strange that these gentlemen, at the same time yielding to the indolence consequent on the climate, should neglect or behold with indifference all the other secondary resources which the supplying the wants of the country and the extensive scope and variety of its produce offer to the man of active mind.  Hence it follows, as already observed, that the whole of the interior trade is at present absorbed by the principal natives, the Sangley mestizos of both sexes, and a few Chinese peddlers.