The property which was in existence during the past year, for whom owners or consignees appeared, was surrendered to them; there was a great quantity of it, and now they take [blank space in MS.].  This is the amount which I have been able to send from the royal treasury, where some of the property of the Sangleys was deposited for which an owner was not to be found; next year I will endeavor to send the rest.  During the past year one ship arrived; and the other, which was on its way to Castilla, was lost with a very great quantity of Chinese stuffs and other goods.  For this reason it has been impossible to discharge this obligation in full at the present time.  Let the viceroy notice that this is and will be done because it is just, and not because he has written that unless the people and the goods are sent he will make war on Luzon; for I am sure that the king of China and his ministers, being prudent, politic, and discreet persons, will not wage war for causes so light.  Still, if they desire to do so, the Castilians are well able to defend their lands from all who may attempt to take them away; and they even know how to attack their enemies and to seek them out in their own dwelling-places, when their opponents suppose that they have them conquered.

As regards the licenses for ships coming from China to trade with Luzon, it is not so dangerous to grant such permissions that the king [of China] or other persons there will consent to lose the great advantage which they possess in the large quantity of silver which is carried hence every year; for this remains in China, without a single real leaving there, while the goods which they give us in exchange are consumed and used up in a very short time.  Hence we may say that in this trade the Chinese have as great an interest as the Castilians have, or even more.

Chinese Immigration Restricted

Sire: 

By commission from the royal Audiencia, I have this year attended to the investigation of the Chinese ships, and the Sangleys who have come to this city.  I myself went to examine them, in order to avert the injuries which might be inflicted on them.  Eighteen ships having arrived, with merchandise and five thousand five hundred Chinese on board, besides five hundred more who remained in this city from last year, I ordered the cabildo and regimiento of the city, if Chinese were necessary for the public service, to enter petition therefor within four days, giving a memorandum of the number necessary and the duties that they were to perform.  As they did not do as I had ordered, for a number of days, and as the ships wished to return to China, and I to despatch in them all the infidel Chinese who were here, I reported the case to the royal Audiencia here.  Considering what great lack of service there is in this city, and how necessary workmen are for its restoration, as it has been ravaged by two fires—­more than a hundred of the