ops that are there consumed. The fourth is
that since your Majesty is in such straits it is expedient to attend
first to the relief most necessary, which is that of affairs here;
and since you cannot attend to all, it is compulsory to abandon that
country. Finally, your Majesty's dominions are widely separated,
and cannot be preserved except by withdrawing from those which
are least necessary, for power united is the stronger. Or it is
argued that, even though it be expedient to maintain the Filipinas,
the commerce should be changed from Nueva Espana to these kingdoms,
and ships should be sent from the city of Sevilla to the Filipinas,
as is done from Portugal to eastern India; and that for this trade
the ships should be laden with merchandise from this country [_i.e._,
Espana], and in exchange for that should bring back the wealth of
Great China and those regions.

In answer to the first, your Majesty expends much in the preservation
of that country, it is true; but the objectors do not consider
that those expenditures which are made are not for the purpose of
preserving the Filipinas--at least since Don Pedro de Acuna, your
governor, won the islands of Maluco, where cloves are obtained; for
since that time the expense has been to maintain the war against the
Dutch, who have been fortifying and making themselves masters there,
and because we did not understand here, in the beginning and later,
how important it would be to spend what was necessary to drive them
out once for all, and to secure those regions. This has been the
cause of spending so much in reenforcements, which have not served,
and do not serve, more than to keep the forts which your Majesty
holds in the islands of Terrenate and Tidore, and the friendship
of the king of Tidore; and this is the cause of the expenses which
your Majesty makes in the Filipinas, while the Dutch are taking away
almost all the profits--although it is true that, if your Majesty had
had ministers there zealous in your service, you might have obtained
profit enough to maintain those forts without drawing upon your royal
exchequer. The same thing could be done at any time when you wish, but
the means for this are not at hand, and accordingly I defer them. If
your Majesty should wish to know them, I will inform you of them. From
this it may be concluded that the Filipinas are not the cause of
these expenditures; and those which were made there before that time
(as will be explained l