They are vessels that carry no more than seven oars to a bench, although larger or smaller ones can be made.  Each one will cost your Highness two hundred and fifty ducados to build; and will with two-thirds as many or even fewer rowers, carry twice as many soldiers as do the caracoas.  The men are protected from sun and shower in excellent quarters which neither the caracoas nor the galleys have.  They carry food for six months, a thing which those other vessels cannot do.  They are very swift sailers, so that there is no ship that can pass them when there is not a contrary wind that prohibits sailing.  They respond so readily to the oar, that while testing that ship before the governor and all Manila, against the swiftest galley of all, I left the galley more than half-way behind.  They carry sufficient artillery to destroy the vessels of all the enemies that we have there, except those of pirates when such should go there.  For the latter it is necessary to have large ships; and it would be advisable to keep there a couple of fragatas like those built in Habana by Pedro Melendes.

Those ships above mentioned are not only useful for war, but can save your Highness many expenses in ships, in carrying food and the tributes; for, in the time while I had it, about two months, until after I had given it to the governor, it alone accomplished more than did all the other vessels.  Consequently, a vast sum can be saved, and the soldiers will be more eager, if they find themselves in so advantageous a vessel.  Also the natives will be spared injuries; and innumerable other benefits will follow, which, in order to avoid prolixity, I shall refrain from mentioning.  Your viceroy of Nueva Espana had me make a model of the said vessel for the exploration of the sea of California in Mexico.

Item:  The garrison soldiers of Manila are a cause [of the ruin of the country], for many are killed, and they are lessened in numbers; and they commit many vile acts, by which the Spanish nation suffers great loss of reputation among those pagans.  Inasmuch as they are paid there in three yearly installments, the result is that, as soon as they have received their money, most of them gamble it away in their quarters, and then go about barefoot and naked.  Many sell their arquebuses to the natives, which is a great evil.  They have to go about begging alms and commit innumerable acts of meanness among the pagans themselves—­who, in contempt, call them “soldiers.”  Further, will your Highness be pleased to order your viceroy of Nueva Espana not to allow any mestizos or mulattoes to be admitted among the men sent as reenforcements to the Filipinas; for such men give themselves up to intoxication, and injure us greatly.