hree or four alcaldes-mayor in all these islands;
but now there are sixteen and most of them are men who came with
him. As they came poor, and as the salaries are small, they have
taken away the Indians--as all affirm, and it is common talk--at
the time for harvesting rice; and they buy up all other provisions,
and many profit by selling them again. In this way everything has
become dear, because, as they have forbidden the Indians to trade and
traffic, they sell at whatever price they wish. Formerly the Indians
brought their produce to the gates, and sold it at very low-prices;
for they are satisfied with very little gain, which is not true of
the Spaniards. But, not to ascribe all the guilt to men, but to our
sins, the cause of this dearness has in part been that these years
have not afforded as good weather as others. This is the state in
which the country has thus far been up to the present.

_Injuries inflicted upon the Indians_

First: When a long expedition is to be made, the wrongs which they
suffer are many. One is to despatch for the Indians who are to row
in a galley or fragata a sailor who has neither piety nor Christian
feeling. Moreover, it is notorious that, without inquiring whether
an Indian is married or single, or whether his wife is sick or his
children without clothing, he takes them all away. It has happened
that when a husband has led this deputy to his wife, who was great
with child, and has asked with tears that he might be left behind
as she had no one to care for her, the sailor has beaten her with
cudgels in order to make her go, and the poor husband also, despite
his resistance. In other cases, their wives are abandoned when dying,
the husband being compelled to go away to row. The Indians are put
into irons on the galleys, and flogged as if they were galley-slaves
or prisoners. Moreover, the pay that is given them is very small;
for they give each man only four reals a month--and this is so
irregularly paid that most of them never see it. The [officials of
the] villages from which they take the rowers divide the pay among
themselves, or give it to those whom they impress as oarsmen. This
statement is thoroughly authenticated; for when the governor, Don
Goncalo Ronquillo, sent to the mines, in Vitis and Lobao alone they
divided three thousand pesos belonging to the Indians themselves;
and when he sent to Borney, in Bonbon they divided more than two
thousand. They say that in all Pampanga