Lead is also shipped from Nueva Espana to the said islands.  More [than that amount] is shipped [however], because it is brought from China and Japon at cheaper rates.  It can be worked in Cabite in order to lead the ships, and in that way your Majesty will save many ducados every year.

The rigging in the said Filipinas Islands is of two kinds:  one, which was formerly used, is made from the palm called gamu, [49] today used only to make cables, stays, and shrouds; the other is called abaca, and is a kind of hemp, which is sowed and reaped like a plant in Piru and Tierra Firme called bihau.  Abaca is much stronger than hemp and is used white and unpitched.  This abaca costs twenty-four reals per quintal, and is made into rigging in Cabite by the Indian natives, in the sizes and diameter required.  These Indian ropemakers are furnished, in repartimiento [50] in neighboring villages, and your Majesty pays them eight reals per month and a ration of one-half celemin of rice daily.  A task is assigned to them, for they work from midnight and until the close of the next day.

The total cost per quintal of this native rigging is about fifty reals.  That shipped from Nueva Espana, which is bought in Beta Cruz and delivered in the port of Acapulco, costs your Majesty two hundred reals per quintal.  It generally reaches the said Filipinas Islands rotten, and is of no use.  If your Majesty will order the ships to sail from Manila furnished [with rigging] for the return voyage, that would, in the first year, put a stop to shipping any [rigging to Manila].

The canvas [lienco] from which the sails are made in the said islands is excellent, and much better than what is shipped from Espana, because it is made from cotton.  They are certain cloths [liencos] which are called mantas [i.e., literally blankets or strips of cotton cloth] from the province of Ylocos, for the natives of that province manufacture nothing else, and pay your Majesty their tribute in them.  They are one tercia [i.e., one-third of a vara] wide, and as thick as canvas [angeo].  They are doubled, and quilted with thread of the same cotton.  They last much longer than those of Espana.  One vara of this cloth [lienco] costs less than one-half real.  The thread of the same cotton with which they are sewed costs twenty reals per arroba.  The cloth brought from Nueva Espana costs your Majesty, when set down in the city of Manila, six reals per vara.  Also the thread shipped from Nueva Espana to sew the sails costs, set down there, six reals per libra.  The thread made of hemp when used with cotton canvas [lienco] is of no use, and does not well endure transportation.  The ships sailing from Manila to Nueva Espana carry sails for the return voyage and nevertheless have to make others in the port of Acapulco.

It is also the custom to ship pikes with their iron heads from Nueva Espana to the said Filipinas Islands.  Delivered in the city of Manila, they cost your Majesty more than thirty-two reals apiece; but, with thirty-two reals, they can make forty pikes in the city of Manila.  It is a weapon that is worthless in those islands, and it is not used in them.  And even if they were used, there are shafts in the forests of those islands, and the native Indian smiths can make the heads.