and consequently we are in extreme necessity.  I beseech your Majesty, if you wish these islands to be preserved, that you will expressly command the said viceroy to send reenforcements annually to this camp, of two hundred men, with powder and ammunition; medicines, and other supplies for the hospitals; and whatever the governor may advise is necessary.  I can assure your Majesty that if this succor fail, everything else will fail also, and everything gained by your Majesty at so great and excessive expenses, in order to start on the way to heaven so many millions of souls who had been dominated by the devil, will be lost.  Thus will be closed the door of this new world which has been opened by your Majesty. [Marginal note:  “Write to the governor that he continue the building.  To Don Luis de Velasco, that he observe this command, and aid the settlements.”]

The fort which, as I had written to your Majesty, was being built, was shaken, when about completed, in three places by great earthquakes.  It opened in one place more than a finger’s breadth, although less in the others.  To assure its safety and construct it in the modern style, although it was quite sufficiently strong before, I am constructing cavaliers which are to serve as buttresses for it.  The principal part, that toward the sea, is finished; the other parts are commenced, and, God helping, will soon be completed.  These will make it so capacious and strong that it can withstand any attack.  I am sending the model, report, and account herewith to your Majesty. [Marginal note:  “Let it be brought.”]

Since coming to this country, I have insisted that the religious should try to learn the Chinese language, in order to convert and teach the Chinese in this land, who are ordinarily about as many as I before stated.  As it is so difficult and the religious are so busily engaged with the natives of the islands, they have not done this.  When the Dominicans came here, I entrusted to them the instruction of the Chinese, and supplied them with interpreters to teach them the language.  I bade them build a church and dwelling in the alcaiceria (called the Parian); and at the point of Tondo, where the Chinese live and carry on their trade.  Two of the religious have been so apt that one of them already understands and speaks that language well, and the other will know it in a short time.  They are preaching and teaching and have converted many people, having now a village of Christians.  This year, on Holy Thursday they held a procession in honor of the blood of Christ, wherein they displayed much devotion.  I hope in our Lord that, as this people so clearly and firmly understand what they learn, and as they have no particular worship, in a short time they will all be converted.  It is certain that if their long hair were not cut off when they are baptized (according to the bishop’s commands), there would already have been a general conversion in this land, and they would have received