The soldiers of the garrison of this redoubt are ill paid their wages. On that account they suffer many and extreme necessities. Since they make no outside expeditions as do the soldiers of this camp, and since they generally live here and have no other resource than their pay, will your Majesty please have them paid according to the usual custom before the soldiers of the camp, so that this redoubt may not be deprived of its preëminence. For all the infantry and the galleys are paid and the soldiers here are left without any pay and they are injured thereby. Inasmuch as they entered suit in the royal Audiencia in regard to the fact that the royal official judges did not pay them from their situado, it resulted therefrom that the said royal officials were arrested because they did not pay them as appears by the records that I am sending to your Majesty. If I had not aided them from my own property, they would not have been paid at all. No honorable soldier, on this account, cares to enter upon service in this redoubt; and since the governor has to station here a hundred soldiers whom according to his declaration he is about to station here, for its ordinary defense, it will be advisable that they be soldiers of greater satisfaction. For if they are the class of people whom I have mentioned to your Majesty, we shall be more fearful of them than of those outside. Will your Majesty please order the pay of six reals which these soldiers receive increased somewhat, because this country is very dear in the matter of food; and I am enduring great anxiety and expense because of the great need that the soldiers are suffering, as do the other officials who are serving here, and endeavoring to have this redoubt an honored and good post, and your Majesty better served.
This city needs arms badly, especially arquebuses and muskets in case of any emergency. Will your Majesty please send one thousand muskets here for this purpose so that we may have them at hand and that they may not be taken out to any other place.
Now for twenty years I have served your Majesty in these islands in the posts of infantry captain and castellan of this city, during which time I was continually occupied in war matters; especially coming as master-of-camp and commander of three companies which I raised for the reënforcement of these islands for which purpose I went to Nueba España by order of Governor Gomez Perez. No pay or aid was given me because I offered to do it at my own cost, as appears from the paper and offer that I made although the others who come here with like duties receive a pay of three thousand pesos. The treasury saved six thousand pesos by that. I did that in order to accumulate services so that your Majesty might reward me more highly.
The command of this redoubt was given me in accordance with one of your Majesty’s decrees in the former year of ninety-five. I have had many expenses and costs in it as your Majesty will see by the testimonies and documents that I am sending. Will your Majesty please send me if my services deserve it, the title and confirmation [of this post], since that is fitting and I have it by decree, so that I may better serve your Majesty both in what pertains to this redoubt and in the cabildo of this city, where the castellan has a vote. Will you please order the privileges that are kept for those who serve your Majesty in similar posts kept for me, and grant me six halberdiers for my personal bodyguard from the number of soldiers assigned, without increasing their pay; and who when occasion offers shall serve as do the others, and whom it will be necessary that I have.
Also in accordance with my expenses and costs, which will appear there, will your Majesty please increase my salary and assign me another sum equal to the amount received by the master-of-camp. For this is a post of equal caliber and one of closer residence and greater expense. If there is no possibility for this will your Majesty please have the encomienda which was granted me by your Majesty’s decree (which amounts to an income of seven hundred pesos) increased for me, and give it precedence over all those who have been here less time than I, since I merit as much as he who merits the most in offices and services.
In the allotment of the cargo of the ships made to the citizens of this city, I petition your Majesty to have me granted some leeway when I pay the royal duties, for I am usually injured in this particular by the occasions that arise; and that I may have recourse to the royal Audiencia whenever I receive injury. May our Lord preserve the royal Catholic person of your Majesty with the increase of greater kingdoms and seigniories as is necessary to Christianity. Manila, June 24, 1604.
Don Bernardino Maldonado
[Endorsed: “Letter from Don Bernardino Maldonado, castellan of the redoubt of Manila, giving an account of the condition of that fortress. Manila June 21, 1605.”]
[1] The benefactor of the Recollects. See VOL. XXI, pp. 194, 284–289. [↑]