s depart
from here, where they are so few and so many are needed. Before this
ship arrived the president and I had despatched two Dominican religious
to Chincheo, which is the province of China nearest to this land, and
the place whence all the Sangleys who come here to trade set forth. In
this departure there was a punctual observance of what your Majesty
commands in this clause of your letter, although we had not then
received it. And owing to the fact that before we determined to send
them, and at the time when we sent them, there occurred many notable
things from which your Majesty should receive much satisfaction,
I thought it better, in order not to make this letter so long, to
place them by themselves in another, which will accompany this one,
in order to give your Majesty a more detailed account of things so
worthy to be heard.

With regard to what your Majesty orders concerning the remission of
tithes for twenty years to those who now come to settle and who may
come in the future, I would to God that the Spaniards were inclined to
cultivate the land and to gather the fruits from it, rather than that
we should ever afflict the natives by tithes. But your Majesty should
know that when a man comes to this country, even if he were a beggar
in Spain, here he seeks to be a gentleman, and is not willing to work,
but desires to have all serve him; and so no one will give himself to
labor, but undertakes trafficking in merchandise, and for this reason
military and all other kinds of training have been forgotten. From
this fact not a little damage will come to this land, if the governor
does not regulate this. In the letter which the cabildo of the church
wrote to your Majesty a much longer account is given of this.

To proceed informally [_de plano_], without insisting on legal
technicalities [_sin llegar a tela de juicio_], and not to impose
pecuniary punishments in the suits which occur in these regions,
is a most holy and necessary practice. I desire greatly that in the
tribunals of your Majesty this be observed; in mine I have so provided,
and this practice has been observed and henceforth will be observed
with greater rigor.

He who informed your Majesty of the disorderly manner in which have
been collected the tributes of the encomiendas which are not fully
pacified, and how poorly the ordinances of your Majesty have been
observed, spoke the truth in this matter. The excess in this has
been so great that it ha