The Introduction is a general summary of the pattern and the branches of Asian Trade as they existed before 1784, and as they continued to operate between 1784 and 1834. The first part of Chapter One deals with the foundation of the Royal Philippine Company and examines its first six years of trade to Asia between 1785 and 1790. In the second part we find the Spanish Company being reformed. Throughout its first thirteen years the Spanish Company was supplied with Asian produce by British Houses in India trading to Manila in Portuguese bottoms. The trade stopped in 1797 at the outbreak of war in Europe between Britain and Spain, and owing to a projected British invasion of Manila.