The viceroy of Nueva España has sent me four companies as a reënforcement, and this camp has six others. I have reorganized five, so that there are now six companies in this city, each with more than one hundred soldiers, which is the least number that a company generally has.
Since the month of August of last year, when I began to govern these islands, the half-annats [103] have been collected with the care ordered by your Majesty, in which I coöperated with the commissary for that tax. The royal officials and the auditor who was appointed commissary are doing as they should.
In the ships of last year, and by way of Yndia, I informed your Majesty how expedient it was to charge five per cent duty on the silver and reals that are sent annually from Nueva España, as no remedy has been found whereby that commerce can be adjusted to the permission of only five hundred thousand pesos, which your Majesty has conceded to these islands. Past times can ill be compared with the present; and granting the accidents which oblige the viceroys of Nueva España not to practice the rigor which they themselves make the governors of Philipinas overlook, and considering the present thing, and watching out for the greater service of your Majesty, I am grieved because the royal officials of the ships enjoy this advantage--which as I have seen, amounts to more than one hundred thousand pesos per year--and, notwithstanding this new tax, the inconvenience of the quantities of money passing from those regions will increase; for it is most certain that those to whom belongs the trade of Philipinas always find a way by which to attain their objects; and because the viceroy of Mexico undertook to check it this year, by only threats, the inhabitants of these islands are ruined and left without their capital, which remained in Nueva España. May our Lord preserve and prosper the royal person of your Majesty, as we your vassals desire and need. Manila, August 10, 1634.
I have given your Majesty an account on all occasions of my coming to these islands, and of the condition of affairs in them, although with limitations, and with the caution of a new arrival. But now, after having governed them a year, I shall be able to discuss their affairs with experience and more freedom, so that your Majesty, having been informed, may enact what is most advisable for your royal service.