or less.  Now it is worth two reals, or at least one, and the same with other things; and, beside being retailers and hucksters, one Chinaman uses more food and wine than do four natives.  What is worse than this is, that the crime against nature is as prevalent among them as in Sodoma; and they practice it with the natives, both men and women.  As the latter are poor wretches and lovers of gain, and the Chinese are generous in paying for their pleasures, this calamity is spreading wide without any public manifestation.  They tell me that during the last few years the Chinese have spread over all the islands.  I saw them when I came into the channel.  Formerly they were only in Manilla.  If your Majesty does not command that this people must absolutely leave the country I fear that God must visit some great punishment upon it.  Those who govern here deceive in regard to their status.  Some of them are kept because the fathers of the Society say thai they need five hundred to cultivate the gardens which they have here, close by the city.  They give each Sangley, for the portion of garden which he works, one peso and one fowl each month.  Others are kept for other reasons; but all the work could be done by the natives if the Chinese were driven out, and the idle and vagabond were compelled to work.

In another letter I wrote to your Majesty of the necessity which obtained in this country of establishing the Inquisition, and today the reasons for this are stronger than then, as shown by experience and our inconveniences.  Thus we have seen, within a few years, that two prisoners who were going to Mexico escaped from the ship “Sanct Philipe.”  In the ships of last year, of three persons who went thither, two died.  A negro who was being taken along as a witness for an accused man of this city died at sea.  If it is thought best not to have salaries, the matter can be remedied by appointing two religious or ecclesiastic persons, and one of the auditors of the Audiencia—­who, as they are advisers, can likewise carry on the suits.  These, as they conduct the office of commissary (which is here the same thing as an inquisitor), would be able to hear the cases and would do so as a work of charity, and with zeal for the honor of God, until they could obtain, from the confiscated property, salaries for the inquisitors whom your Majesty may appoint.  For it is easy to see that there is a great inconvenience in denouncing a person in Manilla and being obliged to send his case to Mexico, or to come from there with a decision as to whether to arrest him or not; and to confiscate here the property of heirs and send it to the Inquisition of Nueba Espana, with so great a risk of loss.