the river from Manila), two pieces of land should be appropriated [for this purpose].  I am assured that these will be sufficient so that two thousand Sangleys can be established on them; and that your Majesty will make the profit which the inhabitants and the religious make, since you can do so with greater advantage and protection to the farmers than private persons can give.  I am also assured that a very productive agricultural estate can be made, by managing to obtain from it the cost in one or two years.  For the rest of the time the rent is left free [from debt or other obligation].  For two thousand Sangleys that will amount to forty thousand fanegas of rice; and, as it increases with time, it will amount to fifty thousand.  That is as much as these magazines need. [In the margin:  “Let us be informed whether any of the expenses of those islands have been reduced.”  “Bring the memorandum of the reduction that was made in the year 618.”]

The gain that will accrue to your Majesty from that will be to relieve your Majesty from the expense of fifty thousand pesos, and the Indian natives from the assessment and allotment of fifty thousand fanegas, which, as aforesaid, is the greatest relief for the islands, and for this royal treasury.  The risk that will be run of the money that will be advanced to the Chinese so that they may settle and equip their farms (in which, although it is given with confidence, there is, of course, always some risk that some will run away and others will die), will all, however, be of little importance, in view of the profits that are seen to result in the estates which the religious and inhabitants are equipping.

It would be advisable for your Majesty to decree this to be carried out without any opposition; and that you order the viceroy of Nueva Espana, in order to facilitate it, to send five thousand pesos separately, and in addition [to the usual situado] in order that I may continue with capital what has been begun without it and (with what I have lent to the treasury from my own funds) make the experiment and take possession of the lands, ordering wheat to be sowed in a portion of them.  I am told that it has been shown by experience that wheat bears well.  This undertaking can not be accomplished in one or two years.  Your Majesty holds these islands for many years through the Divine favor, and your successors as long as the world shall last.  Consequently, the future must be considered, in order that these lands may not remain behind; but if this be done in all parts, in what pertains to your Majesty’s revenues, the treasury will not remain in so backward a condition as at present.

Third point of the letter