ms.

Those islands have so few natives, that if your Majesty does not
expressly order no vessels to be constructed in them, not any of their
people will be left, for as a result the events that have happened in
those islands for the last eight years, both murders and captivities,
many of those who have been left, who are constantly coming to Nueva
Espana, every year as common seamen in the vessels that regularly sail,
remain in Nueva Espana. In the galleon "Espiritu Santo" which came last
year, six hundred and eighteen, were seventy-five native Indians as
common seamen, but not more than five of the entire number returned
in the said galley. If your Majesty does not have that corrected,
the same thing will occur every year, and should your Majesty not
correct it, the following things will occur. The first is the great
offense committed against our Lord, for many (indeed most) of those
native Indians of the Filipinas Islands who come as common seamen
are married in those said islands; and, inasmuch as they are unknown
in Nueva Espana, they remarry here. Another wrong follows which is
very much to the disservice of your Majesty and your royal treasury,
which is caused by the said Indian natives of the Filipinas Islands
who come as common seamen and remain in Nueva Espana; and if it
is not checked in time, it will cause considerable injury to these
kingdoms. This consists in the fact that there are in Nueva Espana
so many of those Indians who come from the Filipinas Islands who
have engaged in making palm wine along the other seacoast, that of
the South Sea, and which they make with stills, as in Filipinas,
that it will in time become a part reason for the natives of Nueva
Espana, who now use the wine that comes from Castilla, to drink none
except what the Filipinos make. For since the natives of Nueva Espana
are a race inclined to drink and intoxication, and the wine made by
the Filipinos is distilled and as strong as brandy, they crave it
rather than the wine from Espana. Consequently, it will happen that
the trading fleets [from Spain] will bring less wine every year,
and what is brought will be more valuable every year. So great is
the traffic in this [palm wine] at present on the coast at Navidad,
among the Apusabalcos, and throughout Colima, that they load beasts
of burden with this wine in the same way as in Espana. By postponing
the speedy remedy that this demands, the same thing might also happen
to the vineyards