ABSTRACT
This chapter describes directly with the imperial trade between Spain's Southeast Asian and Central American colonies, but with the country trade, centred on the Philippines, during the first century of Spanish control. A short overview of Philippine trade during this period will be given first, showing its period of prosperity and its decline. Portuguese prosperity was based on the inter-Asian "country" trade, for in this period most European goods did not find a ready market in Asia. The profits of the country trade were invested in the spices, cloths, and other Asian products which were sent to Europe, although the English and the Dutch were also forced to export some bullion from Europe to pay for these goods. The ruling Tokugawa family was always afraid that the Europeans had designs on Japanese soil, perhaps in alliance with dissident Daimyo elements within Japan, while the Spaniards were alarmed by the possibility of Japanese attacks on the Philippines.
