22.  Since, even if your Majesty should be pleased to command everything done as above, it will still be necessary to bring money from Mexico for the costs, expenses, and salaries incurred in these islands; and as it is not well that, in order to cover them, it should be necessary for your Majesty to employ more property than they amount to, it has seemed best to me to seek some other methods for this—­which, if they should appear expedient for the service of your Majesty, and can be carried out with no scruples of conscience, will not only render unnecessary the bringing of money from outside these islands, but even will make it possible to aid other great expenses which your Majesty has.  The means which I have found are the following.  Your Majesty pays a stipend to all the citizens and inhabitants of the fortified town which you hold in the island of Tidore, which is one of the Malucas Islands.  In order to make these payments, aid is sent every year from Yndia by a galleon; and a quantity of cloth is brought from the royal customs treasury at Goa.  With this the said citizens are all given their “quarters,” as they call them. [5] This cloth is disposed of among the natives, who trade provisions for it.

It is a law of Yndia and of Maluco that no person can lade or take away cloves from those islands in any manner, unless it be for your Majesty, under penalty of loss of the ship and rigging; from which the profit resulting to the royal exchequer amounts to a third of what is laded, so great is the freight charge.  Certain Portuguese came to these islands in their own ships.  They take away a quantity of cloves and sell it to merchants, who in turn sell it to Chinese and other persons, who secretly ship it to Nueva Espana—­whence it is taken to the provinces of Peru, the new realm of Granada, Tierra Firme, Guatimala, and other regions.  From this there result three losses to the royal exchequer.  In the first place, since the cloves are carried from the Malucas by the hand of a third party, your Majesty loses the third due on embarcation.  In the second place, it is laded here for Nueva Espana secretly, and without paying the duties or freight charges.  In the third place, when it has arrived at Nueva Espana, Peru, and other regions, that which is brought from the realms of Castilla loses its value.

All this expense which your Majesty suffers in providing for that fortress, and these losses, could be remedied as follows.  Your Majesty has in the island of Panay, one of these Filipinas, which borders on the Malucas Islands, a number of tributary Indians who pay the larger part of their tribute in cleaned rice.  After their harvest they have a great deal of rice wine, which is made in these islands, and these are the provisions necessary for the Malucas.  If, conformably to what has been said, there were built on your Majesty’s account two patages in the island of Panay—­such as are commonly built in the said island by the encomenderos, to sell to