Having ascertained very carefully the extortions and injuries inflicted on the Indians by the encomenderos and their collectors, in the collection of their tributes, I have thought that it might be a good plan to have the tributes of all the encomiendas collected in your Majesty’s name, and placed in the royal treasury; then they could be paid out from it to the encomenderos.  By this method innumerable acts of tyranny and insolence would be avoided, which can not be remedied, especially in encomiendas distant from here one hundred, one hundred and fifty, or two hundred leguas.  Not one case of punishment has occurred in these encomiendas, although there are wrongs.  We must go there with the authority of the law.  Thus all the encomiendas would have but one master and true proprietor—­namely, your Majesty.  The collectors would be appointed by one person, and would be men of merit, and conscientious and moral.  The estate of the temporal [12] encomenderos would be managed for them at less cost than they themselves would incur therein, and all the tributes would be collected without any care or trouble on their part.  Although this might be somewhat severe on those who already possess encomiendas, it might at least be adopted for those in the future who are granted favors and new appointments (just as if the encomienda were vacant), so that this so commendable usage might be introduced.  In reality the value of the encomienda would be given to them, minus the cost of collection; and the instruction, would be much better paid, although this latter is regulated as carefully as possible.  By this method, too, certain soldiers who are poor and still in service could be appointed to make these collections.  May our Lord, etc.  From Manila, June xx, 1593.

Gomez Perez Dasmarinas

Sire: 

Because of the great need, I have granted in your Majesty’s name a license for this once for the printing of the “Christian Doctrine,” copies of which I enclose herewith—­one in the Tagal language, which is the native and the best language of these islands, and the other in the Chinese language. [13] I hope that great benefits will result therefrom in the conversion and instruction of the people of both nations.  And because the countries of the Yndias are on a larger scale in everything, and because things are more expensive in them, I have set the price at four reals apiece until your Majesty is pleased to decree what is to be done.

On certain of the buildings of this city upon which it is advisable to have the city’s arms placed—­as the houses of the cabildo, the prison, and others built at the expense of the city—­I have not allowed the arms to be placed; for the arms which are now on some cloths [14] on its cabildo, which are those used at the discovery of this country, seem to me to have more meaning and to be more pleasing to the natives of the country than to the Spaniards who settled it.  For they represent a bark or