species of stock, its total amount, according to an official report made by order of the head committee of the sinking fund, including temporalities, and Queen Maria of Austria’s endowment for the College of Las Marianas, together with other funds of the same kind, not comprehended in the decree of abolition, at the commencement of the year 1809, amounted to $2,470,390, and as the sea-risks of that and the following year were successful, and the outstanding amounts punctually recovered, the aggregate sum, arising out of the above description of property, may now be estimated at more than three millions.  Of these funds three distributions are generally made, viz., one part is appropriated to the China risks, at from twelve to eighteen per cent. premium, according to circumstances, and also those to Madras, Calcutta and Batavia, at from sixteen to twenty-two per cent.  The second, which generally is in the largest proportion, is employed in risks to Acapulco, at various premiums, from 27 to 45 per cent.; and the third is left in hand, as a kind of guarantee of the stability of the original endowments.

[Coveted by Spanish treasury.] In the great exigencies of the Royal Treasury, experienced during the last years of the administration of Sr.  Soler, the royal decree of Consolidacion was extended to the Philippine Islands, under the pretext of guarding the funds belonging to public charities and religious endowments ... sea-risks, the income of which, when secured on good mortgages, does not generally exceed five per cent, many in Spain not yielding above four; but the remarkable difference between this plan and the one above described, together with various and other weighty reasons alleged by the administrators, caused the dreaded effect of this new regulation to be suspended, and whilst the head committee of Manila were consulting their doubts and requesting fresh instructions from the court at home, orders came out not to make any alteration in measures relating to this description of property.

[Easy capital but lessened profits.] Accustomed, in their limited calculations, to identify the resources, offered by the funds belonging to this class of establishments, with the very existence of the colony, the needy merchants easily confound their personal with the general interest; and few stop to consider that the identical means of carrying on trade, without any capital of their own, although they have accidentally enriched a small number of persons, eventually have absorbed the principal profits, and possibly been the chief cause of the unflourishing state of the colony at large.  Without fearing the charge of rashness, it may, in fact, be asserted, that if these charities and pious endowments had never existed, public prosperity in the Philippine Islands would, as in other parts, have been the immediate effect of the united efforts of the individual members of the community and of the experience acquired in the constant prosecution of the same object.