royal treasury.  That happened in my presence when Don Juan de Silva sent Captain Francisco Lopez de Toledo for that purpose.  He brought back the supplies at prices more than thrice their value.  While I was acting as the said procurator in China, I bought nails for less than sixteen reals per pico, or five arrobas, and Toledo brought them hither at fifty-six; and other things after this manner, because the Portuguese compelled him to buy through them.

He petitions your Majesty to issue a royal decree, so that the persons sent on a similar commission by your governor may buy freely; and, where they cannot buy freely, they may make another port, where they can trade with the Chinese; and that the governor send an experienced and practiced person on this errand.

7. Item:  Inasmuch as the ships built in the Filipinas cause your Majesty great expense, and have ruined and exhausted the natives; and inasmuch as your Majesty owes them a great sum of money from the time of Don Juan de Silva, for their personal services and things that he took by force from them:  it is very advisable, not only for your royal service, but also for your royal conscience, to relieve them from so great oppression.

He petitions your Majesty to order your governors that they be prohibited from doing this, and that they send to Yndia to have the said ships built; for besides their incomparably greater cheapness there, one built there lasts as long as ten built in Filipinas, because the woods in Yndia are incorruptible.  In this your Majesty will save a great sum of ducados, and the natives will be relieved of so much hardship.  For that a decree from your royal Council of Portugal is needed, and it should be charged upon the governor of Filipinas to do this with the mildness and prudence advisable.  If it is desired it can be easily effected, and it is of great importance.  Of all this he has more minutely treated in clause 7 (which corresponds to this clause) in the memorial which he brings approved from Filipinas.

8. Item:  He petitions your Majesty to do him the favor to order the viceroy of Nueva Espana [91] not to allow a vessel to go thither from Japon (which is a most serious evil), and to order that gate to be closed; and, inasmuch as the Japanese do not know how to navigate without a Spanish pilot and sailors, to have an edict published forbidding such persons under severe penalties (which he [i.e., Coronel] does not declare, because he is a priest) from sailing in such ships to Nueva Espana.  For that, in another guise, means to teach a barbarous nation how to navigate, and is rash, and opens the gate to many evils, for which afterward there will be no remedy.  It will even be advisable to order father Fray Luis Sotelo not to go to Japon, for he was the one who began this, and it may be feared that he will further it.