is a great difficulty in the preservation of that
community, and especially so as your Majesty has granted the favor
to Nueva Espana of giving them for four lives; and as the Filipinas
have been, and continue to be thus far, the colony of Nueva Espana,
and almost governed by the royal Audiencia thereof, it is a great
hardship that they should enjoy no more than two lives. In the
first place, because many are discouraged from serving your Majesty,
and even from remaining in that country, when they learn that their
sons and grandsons must be reduced to the greatest poverty, the said
encomienda expiring with the holder's first son or his wife, as at
present happens; in the second place, because four lives are shorter
in the Filipinas than two in Nueva Espana. The reason for this is the
many occasions for war and naval expeditions, wherein men are easily
killed or drowned, leaving their successors in the hospital--as is
at present the case with many, which makes one's heart ache with pity.

In answer to the tacit objection which might be brought up that it is
better to have the encomiendas vacated quickly, so that others may
be rewarded with them, and with this hope will go to serve there, I
would say that the important matter is to make a compromise--namely
that your Majesty should concede the said encomiendas not for four
lives, as in Nueva Espana, nor for two as at present, but for three,
as formerly, which is a very necessary measure for the relief of some,
and the encouragement of others to the service of your Majesty.

Letter from Master-of-camp Lucas de Vergara, written to Don Francisco
Gomez de Arellano, dean of Manila, which is the last that came from
Maluco in the past year.

By the ship "San Antonio," which I despatched to that city on the
thirteenth of May last, I informed you, with other matters pertaining
to me, of my health, and my arrival at these forts safely with the
three ships in which I took the reenforcements; and of how well I
was received by everyone, and everything which had occurred to me
up to that time. What I have to say to you since that time is that,
from the persons who have come to me from the forts of the enemy, both
native and Dutch, and from other inquiries that I have made, I have
learned that of the ten Dutch ships which were at the harbor-mouth
of Marivelez only four have come back to these islands. One of them
brought the wounded men from Oton; a second one, when our fleet
we