LETTER FROM THE AUDIENCIA OF
MANILA TO FELIPE II
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Sacred Royal Catholic Majesty:
In the past year of eighty-five, we gave your Majesty a report on the condition of this land, and some other matters concerning your service, which are contained in the duplicate accompanying this present letter. If it has not been examined, we beg your Majesty to have this done, and to make suitable provision for these matters.
That the tributes shall be increased by one real for married men, and a half-real for single men, in order to pay the soldiers.[1] Section 1. By your Majesty's order, the soldiers usually come from Nueva Spaña with one hundred and fifteen pesos as pay, out of which they clothe themselves and purchase their weapons. They continue to spend their money until they embark at Acapulco, so that, when they arrive at these islands, they have nothing more to spend and find no one to give them food. Unable to find a way
- ↑ This document forms part of the group "Measures regarding trade with China;" but its subject-matter renders its location at this point more appropriate; consequently it has been transferred hither. The works printed in italics at the beginning of certain paragraphs in this document are, on the original MS., written as marginal notes—probably by a clerk of the Council of the Indias.
