[Shelter for shipping.] During the south-west monsoon and the stormy
season that accompanies the change of monsoons, the roadstead is
unsafe. Larger vessels are then obliged to seek protection in the
port of Cavite, seven miles further down the coast; but during the
north-east monsoons they can safely anchor half a league from the
coast. All ships under three hundred tons burden pass the breakwater
and enter the Pasig, where, as far as the bridge, they lie in serried
rows, extending from the shore to the middle of the stream, and bear
witness by their numbers, as well as by the bustle and stir going on
amongst them, to the activity of the home trade.

[Silting up of river mouth.] In every rain-monsoon, the Pasig river
sweeps such a quantity of sediment against the breakwater that just
its removal keeps, as it seems, the dredging machine stationed there
entirely occupied.

[Few foreign vessels.] The small number of the vessels in the
roadstead, particularly of those of foreign countries, was the more
remarkable as Manila was the only port in the Archipelago that had any
commerce with foreign countries. It is true that since 1855 three other
ports, to which a fourth may now be added, had gotten this privilege;
but at the time of my arrival, in March, 1859, not one of them had
ever been entered by a foreign vessel, and it was a few weeks after
my visit that the first English ship sailed into Iloilo to take in
a cargo of sugar for Australia. [14]

[Antiquated restrictions on trade.] The reason of this peculiarity
laid partly in the feeble development of agriculture, in spite of the
unexampled fertility of the soil, but chiefly in the antiquated and