In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the trade between Japan and the Philippines by the Spanish ships had been flourishing. Manila became the center of the commerce in the Far East, and the entrepot of the Chinese silk, which the Japanese coveted. Selling it to the Japanese, the Spanish bought flour, salted fish and meat, arms and so on from Japan. The King of Spain gave support to the development of this trade. leyasu favoured the Spanish, in order not only to import silk but also to gain the technique of silver-mine exploitation and its refining from them. And the missionary works of the Spanish friars gave a good influence to the development of the trade. Though the exact amount of the trade cannot be clarified, it was as much as to make the Portuguese and the Jesuits feel fear. The pancada-the lump purchase system-had been the Portuguese and the Spanish own way of trade. But the Spanish did not want to practise this pancada system in Japan, on the contrary to the Portuguese. Because their commercial situation did not allow them to do it. Therefore, in order to give damage to the Spanish, the Portuguese demanded the Edo Bakufu to give them order to follow this system, which they naturally resisted. The Bakufu tried to resolve this problem from a point of view of its interest, and accepted the demand of Portugal. But few years later, the Japanese Government could not help permitting the Spanish to do a fre trade, in the circumstances of the foreign rade sorrounding Japan at the time.
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