t your Majesty's expenses. But it
is certain that some economies come to be wasteful. He told me that
I should reduce the soldiery in these islands to the number that was
established by Gomez Perez Dasmarinas. As he does not know what it
means to have Dutch enemies about us, he thinks that we could get
along with fewer men [than we have here]. I find, Sire, that your
Majesty does not have another military establishment more important
in the Yndias than the Filipinas Islands. And, that it may be evident
whether I make a wrong assertion, consider what part of the Yndias the
enemy have made their own--except Xava, where they hold Xacatra, three
hundred leguas from here. There they have their principal fort, and
have their ammunition and magazines. Here, Sire, here, is where your
Majesty, joining Malaca and Macan to this government, must maintain
your forces and oppose them to those of the enemy. If that is not done,
there is but little to hope from these Yndias, which will be ruined in
a short time; or, at the least, will incur so many expenses that they
will be of no use. May God take me to that court, where I hope to make
the affairs of these regions understood as they are, and not as people
imagine there. Neither heavy expenses nor large fleets are necessary
for this. The continual plying of four galleons and two pataches, and
four galleons in the strait of Malaca, will keep the enemy so hemmed
in that they will make no captures or have any trade; and they would
have to go in company and armed, and thus incur expenses. Castilla
has no trading company for the expenses of war. Without prizes or
trade they would be able to inflict the first injury on the Dutch;
for the strait of Malaca, which is the place where the Dutch conduct
the greater part of their trade, would be secure with the galleys,
for there are no winds there, as a rule. The tide allows the ships
to enter and leave by three straits, the broadest of which is very
narrow, for only one ship can tack in it. That strait is not the one
generally used, but the other two. I am assured that in both the ends
of the yards of the galleons brush through the trees ashore. I wrote in
regard to this matter, in the year of 30, by Admiral Diego Lopez Lobo,
whom I was sending to that court to treat of that matter alone; but
God was pleased to let him drown in the flagship of the trading-fleet
which was lost in the past year of 31. I wish that at least one of the
three mails whic