For so costly an expedition, this royal treasury is in great need, for of two hundred thousand pesos that the viceroy of Nueva España sent here, there were taken to Macan fifty thousand pesos to buy quicksilver; twenty-six thousand for provisions, powder, and other munitions and supplies; thirty-five thousand paid to the fund of probated estates, and to citizens who had lent money the year past for the support of the fleet. So great were the arrears of debts to private persons, since the taking of Terrenate, and an entire year's pay that was owing to the troops, that it is greatly impoverished, having, as is the case, so many necessary matters to attend to. The most important of these is a fort in this port, so that I may not find myself in such risk and danger as the enemy placed me in this year, capturing the port from me, together with three unfinished galleons, as I have informed your Majesty. In the preparation for the expedition that I have resolved upon, it would not be possible to accomplish all, or even a small part of it, if it were not for forty-five thousand pesos that have been collected from the eight pesos that each Sangley gives for his license to remain in these islands. With all this there is such a lack of money that I must go with little enough on the expedition. If there were any fund from which to get support, I should make use of it; but I promise your Majesty that there is none anywhere, nor even a citizen from whom I can borrow a real. We shall have to get along as best we can, until the viceroy of Nueva España provides for us. May our Lord protect the Catholic person of your Majesty for many years, according to the needs of Christendom. Cavite, September 9, 1610.
_To the governor and Audiencia of Manila, directing them to give information concerning the controversy that the natives of the village of Quiapo have with the fathers of the Society concerning certain lands; and, in the meantime, that they provide what is expedient._
The King: To my governor and captain-general, president and auditors of my royal Audiencia of the city of Manila, of the Philipinas Islands. Don Miguel Banal has informed me--in a letter of the fifteenth of July, six hundred and nine--that, at the instance of the natives of the village of Aquiapo, the late archbishop of that city wrote to me that the fathers of the Society of Jesus, under pretense that the metropolitan dean of Manila sold them a piece of arable land [_verta_] which lies back of the said village, have appropriated it for their own lands, taking from them more than the dean granted--to such an extent that there hardly remains room to plant their crops, or even to build their houses. And the said Miguel Banal, who is the chief of that village, having built a house, one of the Society, called Brother "Nieto," came into his fields, together with many blacks and Indians, with halberds and other weapons; and they demolished the house, to the great scandal of all who saw them, and without paying any attention [to the remonstrances of] the alcalde-mayor of the village. He entreats me, for assurance of the truth, to command you to make an investigation regarding it; and in the meantime not to disturb them in their ancient possession, which they have inherited from their fathers and grandfathers. Having examined it in my Council for the Yndias, it has appeared best to order and command you, as I do, to inform me of what has occurred in this matter, and is occurring, and in the meantime to take such measures as are expedient. Madrid, on the seventh of December of one thousand six hundred and ten.