five or six thousand pesos
were taken, and similarly in all towns where they get recruits.

Sometimes they do not go at harvest-time to collect the rice which
they say belongs to your Majesty, but only when it is very dear; and
then they require it to be sold for the price which it was worth when
they harvested. Sometimes the Indians buy back for five or six tostons
what they sold for one. The past year, when the Indians ate shoots of
palms and bananas because they had no rice, and many Indians died from
hunger, they made them sell the remaining rice at the price which it
was worth at harvest-time. Sometimes the entire quantity of his rice
is taken from an Indian, without leaving him a grain to eat. One poor
widow, seeing that they were carrying off all her rice without leaving
her a grain to eat, took, as best she could, two basketfuls to hide
under the altar, and there saved them; but it is certain that if the
collector had known it, they would have been taken from that place.

Another injury that they do to this poor people, under pretense
of its being for your Majesty, whereby your royal name is detested
among them, is as follows. Formerly, when rice was plentiful, four
hundred gantas were worth one toston; your Majesty's officials of La
Pampanga furnished me with the price which it was worth. Last year the
governor ordered that twelve thousand fanegas of rice be taken from
La Pampanga for your Majesty, and that the Indians should give three
hundred gantas for one toston. It was then worth among them about a
peso of gold, because it could not be had at any price. Many Indians
died of hunger. The three hundred gantas which they took from them for
one toston were worth about six tostons, and a person who wished to
buy it could not find it. This present year, when they have so little
grain and the famine is so great in La Pampanga, the Spaniards might
have sent to other districts to buy rice, where--although they must
go farther--it is more plentiful, and could be taken without injuring
the Indians. Yet the Spaniards have chosen not to do this, but rather
to order that it be taken from La Pampanga. And while the price among
the Indians is fifty gantas for one toston, they require them to give
for your Majesty at the rate of two hundred and fifty gantas. At the
season when this was collected, I was visiting La Pampanga, and I
saw so much weeping and moaning on the part of the wretched Indians
from whom they took the r