o the law; and on this oath, being questioned in accordance with
the interrogatory, he deposed as follows:

In reply to the first question this witness declared that he knew that,
at the time when the Spaniards discovered and pacified these islands,
all the natives thereof--and especially those of this province,
as this witness has seen--wore no other garments than those made
of the cloths which they then wove, which were very good; nor did
they care to use, instead of this, stuffs from other countries. And
although one or two ships came from China, these carried no cloth,
but only plates, horns, iron, and _camanguian_, which they took in
exchange for rice and gold, and for cotton in the boll, where this
was grown. And thus he replied to this question.

To the second question he said that since the Spaniards had settled
in the city of Manyla, the Sangleys--who at various times had formed
settlements there--seeing there were Spaniards in the country, and
that the money they brought was different from that which had been
used there before, began to increase their ships, bringing each year
a greater number than before. In these they brought to the islands
very large quantities of provisions (although there was no need of
these in the country), together with many pieces of satin, damask,
and taffeta, and other pieces of fine silk, and a large quantity of
cotton cloths, white and colored. And so far has this gone that this
witness has known as many as twenty ships to come in a single year,
and he has known a time when at least eight entered the river of Manila
alone. For, besides these, many go to the provinces of Pintados, which
they call Pan, Cubu, Pangansinan, Ylocos, and Cagayan. And when the
natives of all this Panpanga and of the rest of these islands--the
Bisayan as well as the Tagalan--saw these large quantities of cloth
brought by the Sangleys, and that these were so cheap, they were
unwilling to weave cloth, as they were wont to do before the Spaniards
had come and before the Sangleys brought cloth to them. To avoid
this labor, little as it was, all the natives have taken to buying
their stuffs for clothing, and have entirely abandoned their own,
which they formerly wore. The result is that in all this province,
as this witness knows, no cloths are made; for whenever a garment is
needed by a chief, timagua or slave, he straightway goes to Manila,
where the Chinese have their market, and buys it from them. Another