rofaned; of their
sheep that had been scattered, and many of them lost; and by their
subjects who had been killed or captured, or at the least obliged to
hide in the mountains, where deprived of all necessity, they suffered
indescribable misery, traveling in the inconveniences and darkness
of the night in order to fulfil their obligation as missionaries. But
Manila is, as a rule, the place where least attention is paid to the
wretchedness of the poor Indians and to the misfortunes of the gospel
workers; for, since the citizens are busied in their Asiatic and
American trade, the only thing that troubles them is any opposition
to their profits. Very few are the Spaniards who risk themselves in
small boats to seek profit from island to island; and consequently,
they hear of misfortunes, which ought to cause the greatest horror,
quietly and without any special disturbance. The passages from
some islands to others being occupied and even embarrassed by Moro
craft, the latter cause those who sail thither innumerable ruin; but
many of the inhabitants of Manila have very little or, perhaps, no
feeling. If news arrives that a religious has been killed or captured,
some insolent tongue is not wanting to break out with the ballad as
infamous as ancient, that the king brings us for this, namely, to
suffer and die in defense of the law of God; as if it were compatible
with the royal piety to abandon the defenseless ministers of Christ,
however much they may expose themselves with heroic mind to endure
a thousand martyrdoms. Nothing in short, matters to those people, if
it do not touch their persons or interests: neither the misfortunes
nor the violent deaths of their neighbors, nor the outrages of
his Majesty's vassals, nor the losses of his royal treasury in the
tributes which are lessened by such confusions, because the Indians
are lost by the thousand.

320. Although the captain-general tries, as a good minister, to attend
to such wrongs, it is quite common that he is unable to do all that
he tries; now because of the depletion of the royal treasury, whose
funds do not suffice to meet the calls upon it; and now since he must
proceed with the advice of the council of war in which those have many
votes who understand only what pertains to the exercise of merchants,
although they sign their names with military titles. If the vessels
in which they are interested are in danger, all difficulties are
conquered, for there is no one who