There are none of your letters which have not been answered, and the same may be said of those from the Audiencia, the officials of my royal estate, and other officers.  Madrid, December 13, 1620.

I The King

By command of the king, our lord: 

Pedro de Ledesma

Memorial, y Relacion para sv Magestad

By, Hernando de los Rios Coronel.  Madrid:  Fernando Correa, 1621.

Source:  This is translated and synopsized from the copy of the original printed work owned by the Library of Congress.

Translation:  The translation and synopsis are made by Robert W. Haight and James A. Robertson.

Memorial,

And Relation

For His Majesty, of the Procurator-General of the

Filipinas, of what it is advisable to reform, and of the wealth contained in them, and in the Islands of Maluco.

In the year 1621.

Madrid

By the widow of Fernando Correa.

Memorial and Relation of the Filipinas

Sire: 

I, Hernando de los Rios Coronel; an ordained priest, and procurator-general of the Filipinas Islands, Maluco, and all that archipelago, declared that, about thirty-two years ago or more, I went to the Filipinas Islands, where I lived a considerable time in the military habit and exercise, and as a citizen of the city of Manila, but with greater desires than strength to serve your Majesty, and endeavoring to give indications of this to all the inhabitants of that kingdom.  On that account, they charged me with, and loaded upon my shoulders, in the year 1605, the weight of their cares and troubles.  I came to this court, where I prostrated myself many times before the royal feet of his Majesty who is in heaven, and gave him an account of those things.  I returned to that kingdom in the year 1610, to give account there of myself, and of my mission, undergoing many hardships and perils.  Although such might have been avoided, and I could have made stipulations for my comfort and rest, as I had opportunity to do in your royal Council of the Indias, I confess that I know not what interior force and natural inclination has always induced me to prefer the service of your Majesty, and the welfare and increase of that kingdom, to my own rest or comfort—­which, in order to follow your service, I have never regarded as important, or given it any care.  Inasmuch as times change affairs, and considering the many casualties caused by the enemy from Olanda, things have come to a very different pass from that in which I then left them.  For that reason, that entire kingdom and its estates resolved that I should return again to confer with your Majesty and your royal councils concerning what was most advisable for your royal service and the welfare and relief of that land.  And although I found that I needed some rest in a corner, and it was a severe trial for me to consent again to undergo more arduous labors, and difficulties so much greater as are the gravity of affairs in those islands and the multitude of the enemies with whom the seas are infested, yet that desire and inclination [for your Majesty’s service] had so much power over me that I postponed all my rest.