are badly paid and badly treated, while their wives and children are left to starve to death, and their crops go to ruin.  The governors of the Filipinas, in their effort to avoid that trouble [i.e., of hostile raids] have built galleys there since the time of Doctor Francisco de Sande until now.  As I have seen personally, and as all the inhabitants of that country know, the galleys of the Filipinas are their destruction.  The reason is that the rowers are a weak people, and their food is not very nourishing.  Accordingly, it has happened, even lately—­during Don Pedro de Acuna’s term, when the galleys were best supplied—­that the crew have continued to row a galley for six hours, and that two convicts fell dead, while the others stretched themselves on the deck exhausted; and even if the overseers killed them, they could not make them move.  For that reason, and because the seas have strong currents between those islands, and continual winds, the galleys are of little use.

Another reason is that, since the galleys draw much more water than the enemy’s vessels, when the former try to make land they can cause no injury.  Another reason is that the galleys are generally anchored in the river of Manila, and, when any necessity arises, before they can leave the port they have to get provisions for the crew.  Often it is necessary to seek contributions of food from house to house, because there is none in the royal magazines.  If the wind is only slightly contrary, which is generally the case, the ships cannot move, and when they finally begin to look for the enemy, the latter are at home, and laughing at us.  Another reason is that the galleys are an intolerable burden, which it is impossible to sustain.  They have so consumed the supplies, and so endangered the royal treasury, that other very necessary things cannot be attended to.  Further, they cause the ships of the line, to be short of necessities and poorly equipped, because in attending to the construction of the galleys, they neglect the ships.  And since there are many ship-worms there in the river, which eat the ships, it is necessary to rebuild them every year, and to be continually repairing them.  Further, they are dens of thieves, who are always assaulting and plundering the Indians.  In short, they are the destruction of that community; and hitherto have accomplished nothing, either good or bad, that is of any importance.  Further, your Highness is under great expense with them in paying their many salaries.  Consequently, as there is little cloth in the Filipinas with which to clothe so many, everything is, of necessity, going to ruin, where the expenses are not measured by the revenues.  All the above evils can be corrected by ordering ships made according to the plan and model that I left with the governor at my departure; for, considering the said wrongs, and wishing to remedy them, I made a ship at my own cost, which has the following peculiarities, of which I give a description.