ill do well if they get back their money. The evil does not
stop here; for these traders are compelled to perform sentinel-duty,
just as the soldiers do, and in order not to leave their goods to be
stolen, they pay a soldier who does this for them, and collects the
money. Thus every week they have to pay one toston (the equivalent
of four reals) for the services of a sentinel.

These same merchants were summoned for an expedition which was going
to Iapon [Japan], and a fleet was made ready to sail thither; and
in order to avoid going they paid as much as thirty and forty pesos
each. Thus, in many ways, trade has been unfortunate this year. The
latest injury--that which most harassed the Chinese, and most succeeded
in irritating them--was that, in sending a galley on the expedition to
Iapon which I mentioned, twenty or thirty Sangleys who had come this
year to remain here were seized, and compelled to row. Many have come
to me to complain, saying that they had come here to earn a living
for their children; and asked that, since they were not allowed to
accomplish what they came for, they might be permitted to return to
their own land. But it profited neither them nor me to say this,
for they went on that expedition and have not yet returned. From
this another injury has come to us all. For since those who went
in the galley, and others sent afterward, were fishermen, the fish
that formerly was sold in the streets in great quantities, and for
a trifling sum, now cannot be obtained at a high price. Next, they
sent another vessel, loaded with rice as provision for the fleet,
and ordered a like number of Sangleys to accompany it. In order to
avoid going, each hunted up whomsoever he could find; and he who
had no slave to send gave ten pesos to some other man to act as his
substitute. These and other wrongs have caused two hundred Sangleys,
who came this year to settle here, to return; and of those who were
living here two hundred and more have gone away. There used to be a
very prosperous settlement of them on the other side of the river,
but now there appears to be almost no one--as your Majesty will see
by the letter written to me by the vicar of the Sangleys, who is an
Augustinian friar.

Another wrong is done to the Indians--not to all in general, but to
many; it is, to hold them as slaves. This clause also concerns the
failure of the governors to obey your Majesty's decrees and writs;
for so many of these are issu