Sometimes they do not go at harvest-time to collect the rice which they say belongs to your Majesty, but only when it is very dear; and then they require it to be sold for the price which it was worth when they harvested.  Sometimes the Indians buy back for five or six tostons what they sold for one.  The past year, when the Indians ate shoots of palms and bananas because they had no rice, and many Indians died from hunger, they made them sell the remaining rice at the price which it was worth at harvest-time.  Sometimes the entire quantity of his rice is taken from an Indian, without leaving him a grain to eat.  One poor widow, seeing that they were carrying off all her rice without leaving her a grain to eat, took, as best she could, two basketfuls to hide under the altar, and there saved them; but it is certain that if the collector had known it, they would have been taken from that place.

Another injury that they do to this poor people, under pretense of its being for your Majesty, whereby your royal name is detested among them, is as follows.  Formerly, when rice was plentiful, four hundred gantas were worth one toston; your Majesty’s officials of La Pampanga furnished me with the price which it was worth.  Last year the governor ordered that twelve thousand fanegas of rice be taken from La Pampanga for your Majesty, and that the Indians should give three hundred gantas for one toston.  It was then worth among them about a peso of gold, because it could not be had at any price.  Many Indians died of hunger.  The three hundred gantas which they took from them for one toston were worth about six tostons, and a person who wished to buy it could not find it.  This present year, when they have so little grain and the famine is so great in La Pampanga, the Spaniards might have sent to other districts to buy rice, where—­although they must go farther—­it is more plentiful, and could be taken without injuring the Indians.  Yet the Spaniards have chosen not to do this, but rather to order that it be taken from La Pampanga.  And while the price among the Indians is fifty gantas for one toston, they require them to give for your Majesty at the rate of two hundred and fifty gantas.  At the season when this was collected, I was visiting La Pampanga, and I saw so much weeping and moaning on the part of the wretched Indians from whom they took the rice, that it moved me to great pity—­and all the more since I could see so little means to provide a remedy; for although I wrote about it to the master-of-camp, who was at that time lieutenant-governor, it profited me little.