Concerning the twenty-two thousand pesos in salaries for the Audiencia.  Section 3.  Your Majesty has ordered that from the repartimientos of Indians that are now or shall become vacant, twelve thousand pesos de minas shall be assigned to the royal crown, to pay the salaries of the Audiencia.  We have informed your Majesty, in our letters, of the great difficulties that would arise from the execution of this order.  For the soldiers, expecting to receive encomiendas, and that some day good fortune would come to them, have for many years served your Majesty, and are now serving, in war at their own cost.  Now the fruit of their labors is taken away from the men who have conquered and maintained this land, while they are without the hope that they may be rewarded in any other manner; and, seeing themselves thus deprived, they become disheartened, desert service, and abandon the land, thus depopulating it beyond all remedy.  It seems to us that, if such should be your Majesty’s pleasure, it would be best that you command money to be sent from Mexico for the salaries of the Audiencia; and to assign the Indians who are or shall be without owners as repartimientos and encomiendas to those who have served, and have merited such reward, as has been the custom hitherto.  Since the conservation and increase of this land is so important for your Majesty’s service, may you be pleased to order for its succor, and for the aid of the ecclesiastical and secular estates, the sum of twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand pesos, to be provided annually from the royal exchequer in Mexico.  This sum is quite necessary for the expenses incurred in armed expeditions, in aid for this land and its defense, and in what is done almost every year for Maluco.

Section 4.  As affairs in this island are constantly falling into so great neglect and danger of loss; and so many occasions that might be advantageous to your Majesty, for the reduction of this new world to your service, slip by; and since all the many thousands of souls, oppressed and deceived by the devil, in great China and other kingdoms in the neighborhood of these islands, may be saved through the door which your Majesty has commenced to open—­understanding that your Majesty has not been suitably informed since these neighbors were discovered, nor has had any clear account of their affairs, we have agreed to send your Majesty a person who can do this and give your Majesty a true relation of everything.  Considering that Father Alonso Sanchez, of the Society of Jesus (a man of the highest prudence and learning, and most excellent in Christian faith and practice), has a wide knowledge and great experience in this land and the realms of China, Yndia, Xapon, and other surrounding nations (acquired by having seen most of them several times and having visited and closely observed them), and inasmuch as there is no one else able to do it—­considering also his detachment from outside considerations and