ascertain thoroughly the secret of the so great riches and trade
possessed by the said islands, in order that your Majesty may be best
served in everything. I beseech and supplicate this, and especially
that your Majesty be pleased to provide promptly everything thus
requested--seeing that delays might cause bad results, because of
the small number of the Spaniards, and the great work to be done at
present in this island of Luzon; and because those here deserve all
the reward and kind succor that your Majesty may extend to them.

_Juan Pacheco Maldonado_

Encomiendas Forbidden to Royal Officials

In the city of Manila, on the twenty-sixth day of May, one thousand
five hundred and seventy-six, the very illustrious doctor, Francisco de
Sande, governor and captain-general for his Majesty of these islands
of the West, and auditor of his royal Audiencia established in the
City of Mexico in Nueba Espana, declared that it is an encumbrance
and damage to the royal treasury for his Majesty's officials to hold
encomiendas of Indians; and, as such, his Majesty has forbidden this
by laws, and recently in a letter which his Majesty wrote to the said
officials in the year seventy-four, in which it appears they ask from
him permission to own Indians. In this letter there is a paragraph
of the following tenor:

"As for what you ask concerning repartimientos of Indians--namely,
that favor be granted you, because you have served as discoverers of
these islands--such a thing has appeared to us unsuitable, considering
your offices; and therefore there is no good reason for acceding to
your request in this matter. In other affairs, there will be occasion
for granting you rewards (and you will bring it to mind when you
send to our Council of the Indies reports of what has been in your
charge), and when it has been seen in what ways you have served. The
same will be done in regard to increase in your salaries. Madrid,
April twenty-five, one thousand five hundred and seventy-four."

The governor says the same; and because the aforesaid persons are
freed from private affairs in order to fulfil their duties, as they
are obliged, he did order, and now so orders, that they shall not
hold the said Indians in encomiendas, and retracted those which were
granted them by Guido de Lavecares, treasurer of these islands--who
at that time filled the office of governor thereof, on account of the
death of the governor Miguel Lopez. He said that