The Golden Age of the Spanish Empire

To keep shipments to and from spain safe from british and french and dutch pirates, the spanish developed a convoy system. The famous manila galleons would part from alcapolco on the pacific coast of new spain, loaded with silver. They would then land in manila, trade all that silver for chinese spices, and then come back to Alcapolco. Chinese goods would then be transferred overland to vera cruz, the principal port city on the atlantic side of new sp Spain. And it was in describing this sprawling sp Spanish trade network that you first get the old saw about the empire on which the sun never sets