ce, and for every warrant
they charged ten pesos, which comes to eighty [13] pesos. The payment
is made in silver, to exchange which for current money causes a great
deal of loss. Thus all of these pilferings consume the little which
is given to the religious. I pass over the fact that it is impossible
to collect money due without taking many steps and hearing many rude
answers and sometimes insulting language. At one time when I was
making such claims, one of the Mexican accountants uttered to me,
before respectable witnesses, an insult which cut me to the heart,
because I felt it as a man; and if he had uttered those words to one
of his slaves, it might have wounded him.

_In Acapulco_. At the port of Acapulco is the last stopping-place. I
do not even know what happens there, for at the time of writing this
report we have not arrived there; but I have sufficient evidence
that it must be the most burdensome of all. It is about three months
since I have had three religious there, being obliged to send them
in advance that they might prepare there what is needed for the
voyage. One of them with my power of attorney requested the royal
officials there to grant them a house, as is usual and customary,
that they might collect there the ship-stores which are on the way
from Mexico, and might lodge the friars there when about to make the
journey. They presented for this purpose your Majesty's decree which
I possess, and the officials replied that they would not grant them
the house without a command from the viceroy. I sent this to them,
and they made I know not what additions, and so have sent it back
to me. During the two months and more that have been occupied with
these demands and answers, the poor friars have slept on the ground,
without having anyone to take them into his house--except that, being
taken ill, they were received in the hospital. It is with all these
hardships and difficulties that this voyage, so much to the service
of God and of his Majesty, is taken, besides those experienced in
the voyage itself, which are enough to make the beard of the bravest
tremble. His Majesty requires, in spite of all this, that all of the
religious who go from Espana to Philippinas must proceed thither,
without permission being granted for any to remain in Nueva Spana;
but there is no means less suitable to gain that end than obliging
them to pass through so many difficulties. They come out of them
so much grieved and humilia