it is so well provided that it can maintain many Spanish settlements, which will produce good fruit, both spiritual and temporal.  Ships from China come to trade at many ports of this island.  It is understood as certain that the mainland is very near us, less than two hundred leagues; so that, if we are reenforced, I hope in our Lord that much fruit and service will result to God and your Majesty.  For reenforcements have come to this island so slowly that, in eight years, only seven hundred soldiers have arrived; and, moreover, when some arrive others are dead as a result of the hardships and distress that have been encountered.  Nevertheless, our Lord indeed be praised for having given us, now and in the future, greater repose in a larger land.

Of the natives of this island, some are Moros and Mahometans, especially those living near the coast.  Those in the interior are pagans.  Their arms are numerous and good, namely:  culverins, large and small; lances, daggers, and arrows poisoned with herbs.  They wear corselets of buffalo-hide and of twisted and knotted rope, and carry shields or bucklers.  They are accustomed to fortify themselves in strong positions, where they mount their artillery and archery, surrounding them outside with ditches full of water, so that they seem very strong.  But our Lord (who assists us, because his holy faith is at stake) has always given us the victory, to his and your Majesty’s honor and glory.

The Chinese have come here on trading expeditions, since our arrival, for we have always tried to treat them well.  Therefore during the two years that we have spent on this island, they have come in greater numbers each year, and with more ships; and they come earlier than they used to, so that their trade is assured to us.  Those that come here are, like the people of this land, almost naked, on account of the hot climate.  They do not bring to sell the silks and beautiful things that they take to Malaca.  They say that, if there were any one to buy them, they would bring all we wanted; and so, since trading with the Spaniards, they bring each year better and much richer wares.  If merchants would come from Nueva Espana, they might enrich themselves, and increase the royal customs in these parts—­both through trade and through the mines, the richness and number of which are well-known to us.

Your Majesty knows how antagonistic the Portuguese are in everything here.  When they can do us no harm in their own persons, they try to do so through others.  Last year Chinese vessels came to this city to trade and told us how the Portuguese haa asked them not to trade with us, because we were robbers and came to steal and commit other depredations, so that these people wonder not a little if this be true.  As the treatment accorded to the Chinese neutralizes these reports, more vessels came this year than last, and each year more will come.  I advise your Majesty of this, because it is better to have certain peace