ranged,
I preserve the authority of your Majesty, and free your conscience;
and, provided that no one steals anything from your royal revenues,
the support of these islands will be arranged for, without any help
from Nueva Espana beyond the proceeds of the merchandise carried by
the galleons. But by following this plan I have no need of anything
else except that your Majesty be pleased to grant me permission to
do this. May our Lord preserve your Majesty's Catholic person, as is
necessary to Christendom. Manila, the last of June, one thousand six
hundred and thirty-six. Your vassal kisses your Majesty's feet.

Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera

[_Endorsed_: "The governor of Filipinas to his Majesty, June 30,
1636. Revenue matters. June 10, 1638."

"Let this matter be looked up, and see whether anything has been
enacted concerning it; and take it to the fiscal, with whatever
notices there are concerning it."

"Nothing has been enacted."

"The fiscal declares that it is written in this letter that there are
four or five thousand Chinese who are now paying this duty, and that
it can be increased to eighteen or twenty thousand pesos of income,
while the additional sum that will be paid by each one will not amount
to more than nine reals. That cannot be, except by admitting into the
Filipinas Islands as many more thousand Chinese, as they say, as will
amount to pesos. That will be running great risk, as is well known,
especially in islands so remote and so sparsely settled. And if before,
when there were so few Chinese, so careful provisions were made to
have them remain shut up within their Parian, so that they could not
make any changes in the condition of those islands, one would think
that not without danger can this be changed, with the people who come
in the ships, which they are commencing to do there. Besides that,
to raise the impost on his own authority, without having informed
the Council thereof until after it was executed, is a matter that
furnishes a very bad example; and since the amount concerned is so
small as thirty-six thousand reals (at nine reals apiece, on the
four thousand pesos [_sic; sc._ Chinese] who he says are there),
it is not desirable to risk for that sum the government--which, it
has been found by experience, is without danger--and to expose it to
the possibility of danger. Therefore he petitions that it be ordered
that no innovation be made. Madrid, June 30, 1638."

"July 28, 1638. Ha