Item:  Your Majesty should command that the garrisons of that kingdom be made open, on account of the fact that experience has shown that more men would go, if this were the case.  Those in Maluco should be exchanged with those in the Filipinas every three years, for otherwise so many refuse to go to Maluco, and the forts there are in such ill-repute, that those who are taken there are discontented, as if they were being sent to the galleys; but if they are exchanged, as I have said, they will go willingly.  Beside, they would become experts, and the soldiers from Maluco are worth more than those who have not been there, on account of their constant exercise in war and labor.

Item:  Your Majesty should command that the city of Manila be made an open garrison, like San Juan de Ulua and Habana; for in this way the men will go to the Filipinas willingly.  As Don Juan de Silva has done otherwise for years past, this country has become depopulated, and they have fled to various parts from time to time, no one daring to go there on this account.

Item:  Concerning the treatment of the Indians, and what it is well to inform your Majesty in this regard, as well in what concerns your royal conscience as the good of the country, a separate memorial is required.

Item:  As to the manner of governing them and collecting their tributes, as has been seen by experience, the religious have done a great deal of harm by preventing the Indians from paying tributes on the fruits which they harvest; because the religious have not the inclination or sense to leave many things free—­as will be seen in the account I shall give your Majesty in regard to this, all of which has been taught by experience.

Item:  Finally, it is very necessary that your Majesty should consider that that country is very new, and that your Majesty should desire its growth; and because, likewise, it was not so much in need of your Majesty’s protection and favor in the beginning as it is now—­when so few wish to go there on account of ill-treatment, many misfortunes, and the fear of enemies—­your Majesty should protect it so that they may be encouraged to go there.  For this your Majesty should command your ministers to give those who wish to go a comfortable passage.  For if in early days the king our lord, the father of your Majesty, who so greatly favored and loved that land, not only furnished a passage, but likewise the necessaries for their journey, to those who wished to go, and even freed them from duties and imposts, that aid is much more necessary today; and at least they should be given some exemptions, and should not be treated with such harshness as they now are.  This I can affirm as an eyewitness, that when we arrived at the port of Capulco, after having been on the voyage five months, and a great many of our people had died, and God had brought us through such boundless hardships and dangers to the