A number of old pipe-staves and iron hoops are also shipped from Nueva Espana to the said Filipinas Islands.  Delivered in the city of Manila they cost your Majesty a considerable sum of ducados.  That expense can be avoided; for, when those staves arrive there, they are full of holes and rotten, and quite useless.  The hoops alone serve in Manila to make nails and bolts from them, which thus come to cost fifty ducados per quintal.  They can be made there for thirty-three reals.  It is sufficient to carry those pipes that hold the water and wine in the ships.

For the ships’ supply of water, they generally make vats when the ships leave there [i.e., Manila], each of which carries thirty pipes of water.  Further, there are many earthen jars, which are brought from China and Japon.  Consequently, one can make the above articles there, and more cheaply, for much less money than what is paid there.

Flour is also shipped in pipes from Nueva Espana to the said Filipinas Islands, which they say is for making hosts.  That is unnecessary, for the said islands have an abundance of flour, which is shipped from Japon and China so cheaply, that it costs sixteen reals per quintal in the city of Manila.  That shipped from Nueva Espana costs your Majesty, delivered in the said city of Manila, more than eighty reals per quintal.

From Nueva Espana to the said Filipinas Islands are also transported in the [ships], habas, garbanzos,” [51] and lentils, which are for the provision of hospitals, fleets, and convents.  It serves no other purpose than to arrive at Manila rotten; and if any arrives in good condition, it does not seem so.  For the provision of the fleets, a grain [semilla] is grown in that land [i.e., Filipinas] which resembles beans, and is very cheap.  Consequently it is unnecessary for the ships to carry more than what they need for their voyage when they leave Acapulco.

A quantity of gerguetas [52] are also shipped from Nueva Espana to the said Filipinas Islands.  They are said to be for the use of the soldiers, but that is unnecessary, for that land has other kinds of cloth—­both those that are produced there, and others that come from China—­which are better and cheaper.  If your Majesty will order that to be stopped, it will be of much importance to your royal treasury, and will increase it by many ducados; while it will benefit greatly the soldiers who serve your Majesty in those islands, for, when this cloth is delivered there, they are obliged to take it.

In the former year of six hundred and sixteen, seven galleons were stationed at the city of Manila and the port of Cabite, one of which [53] came built from Yndia, and was bought in Pinacan for the service of your Majesty.  The other six were built in the time of Don Juan de Silva, and Don Juan Ronquillo [54] took them all when he sailed in pursuit of the enemy at Playa Honda.  These said galleys were