, as your Majesty
has been informed, it is a very small one.

His lieutenant receives twenty-eight ducados of ten reals.

The other lesser officers and soldiers receive the pay of those of
any company of the army.

The commandants of the forts of Nueva Segovia, the town of Arebalo,
and the city of Cibu, receive each thirteen ducadoes of ten reals,
plus three and one-third reals per month. Will your Majesty decide,
according to the clear statement of this relation, what you desire
to be reduced, and the reduction will be carried out, in accordance
with your royal order; and the said effort will be made immediately,
in order to assure this expense, as it certainly shall be reduced
from now on.

[_Marginal note_: "Join to this section what was written to him, and
bring them here this afternoon. What you write in this section has
been caused by some misunderstanding. In order that you may understand
it better, and that what is advisable be done, three points are to be
noted by you. The first is in regard to the number of men who have the
title of officer. If such offices are those of the old men--that is,
those offices that were introduced, and which have always existed,
since the creation of the infantry [there], and which have always been
filled by such men--there shall be no innovation. In case that other
and supernumerary offices shall have been added, this is what you are
to reduce, because this number of officers is costly and only serves
for expense and the ambition that there be many to command, and that
the infantry be in charge of many superiors. All that is contrary to
good military discipline. Such is usually tolerated in temporary armies
when they go out on a campaign, because of the special achievements
and undertakings in which they are occupied, all of which is usual
in the training of the militia. In the reductions ordered or made in
the armies of Flandes and other places, this order has always been
observed. The contrary is bad government, and means debt where there
is no revenue, and causes the accounts to be always in arrears and
to be never entirely paid--especially to the common soldiers, to whom
the officers are always preferred. The second point concerns the pay,
and what was ordered you by a section of the letter of December 19,
618, and what is contained in the relation of the secretary Juan Ruis
de Contreras. The pay of the ordinary officers shall not be entirely
suppressed but only lessened