and was equivalent to a gift of from $50,000 to $100,000. [102]
This was made up from commissions, part of the passage-money of
passengers, from the sale of his freight tickets, and from the
gifts of the merchants. Captain Arguelles told Careri in 1696 that
his commissions would amount to $25,000 or $30,000, and that in all
he would make $40,000; that the pilot would clear $20,000 and the
mates $9,000 each. [103] The pay of the sailors was three hundred
and fifty dollars, of which seventy-five dollars was advanced before
the start. The merchants expected to clear one hundred and fifty to
two hundred per cent. The passenger fare at the end of the eighteenth
century was $1,000 for the voyage to Acapulco, which was the hardest,
and $500 for the return. [104] Careri's voyage to Acapulco lasted two
hundred and four days. The ordinary time for the voyage to Manila was
seventy-five to ninety days. [105] Careri's description of his voyage
is a vivid picture of the hardships of early ocean travel, when cabin
passengers fared infinitely worse than cattle today. It was a voyage
"which is enough to destroy a man, or make him unfit for anything
as long as he lives;" yet there were those who "ventured through it,
four, six and some ten times." [106]

Acapulco in New Spain had little reason for existence, save for
the annual fair at the time of the arrival of the Manila ship, and
the silver fleet from Peru. That event transformed what might more
properly be called "a poor village of fishermen" into "a populous
city," for the space of about two weeks. [107]

The commerce between the Philippines and Mexico was conducted
in this manner from 1604 to 1718, when the silk manufacturers of
Spain secured the prohibition of the importation of Chinese silk
goods into New Spain on account of the decline of their industry. A