Spanish East Indies not materialize.) In a similar vein, to promote innovation and education among the residents of the islands, Governor-General José Basco y Vargas established the Economic Society of the Friends of the Country. For over 256 years, the Spanish East Indies were governed by a governor-captain general, and an audiencia. All economic matters of the Philippines were managed by the Viceroyalty of New Spain, located in Mexico. Because the eastward route was more widely used for military purposes, in addition to commerce that included the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade, most government correspondence went through Mexico, rather than directly to Spain (with the
French and British interregnum in the Dutch East Indies Java, called Jalur Pantura. The thousand-kilometre road was completed in only one year, during which thousands of Javanese forced labourers died. The reign of Catholic King Lodewijk in the Netherlands ended the centuries-old of religious discriminations against Catholics both in the Netherlands and in the East Indies. Previously the Netherlands only favour Protestantism. The Catholics were permitted freedom of worship in the Dutch Indies, though this measure was mainly intended for European Catholics, since Daendels ruled under the authority of Napoleonic France. This religious freedom would be consolidated later by Thomas Raffles. Daendels — known as an avid Francophile —