The canvas [lienço] from which the sails are made in the said islands is excellent, and much better than what is shipped from España, because it is made from cotton. They are certain cloths [lienços] which are called mantas [i.e., literally blankets or strips of cotton cloth] from the province of Ylocos, for the natives of that province manufacture nothing else, and pay your Majesty their tribute in them. They are one tercia [i.e., one-third of a vara] wide, and as thick as canvas [angeo]. They are doubled, and quilted with thread of the same cotton. They last much longer than those of España. One vara of this cloth [lienço] costs less than one-half real. The thread of the same cotton with which they are sewed costs twenty reals per arroba. The cloth brought from Nueva España costs your Majesty, when set down in the city of Manila, six reals per vara. Also the thread shipped from Nueva España to sew the sails costs, set down there, six reals per libra. The thread made of hemp when used with cotton canvas [lienço] is of no use, and does not well endure transportation. The ships sailing from Manila to Nueva España carry sails for the return voyage and nevertheless have to make others in the port of Acapulco.
It is also the custom to ship pikes with their iron heads from Nueva España to the said Filipinas Islands. Delivered in the city of Manila, they cost your Majesty more than thirty-two reals apiece; but, with thirty-two reals, they can make forty pikes in the city of Manila. It is a weapon that is worthless in those islands, and it is not used in them. And even if they were used, there are shafts in the forests of those islands, and the native Indian smiths can make the heads.
A number of old pipe-staves and iron hoops are also shipped from Nueva España to the said Filipinas Islands. Delivered in the city of Manila they cost your Majesty a considerable sum of ducados. That expense can be avoided; for, when those staves arrive there, they are full of holes and rotten, and quite useless. The hoops alone serve in Manila to make nails and bolts from them, which thus come to cost fifty ducados per quintal. They can be made there for thirty-three reals. It is sufficient to carry those pipes that hold the water and wine in the ships.
For the ships’ supply of water, they generally make vats when the ships leave there [i.e., Manila], each of which carries thirty pipes of water. Further, there are many earthen jars, which are brought from China and Japon. Consequently, one can make the above articles there, and more cheaply, for much less money than what is paid there.
Flour is also shipped in pipes from Nueva España to the said Filipinas Islands, which they say is for making hosts. That is unnecessary, for the said islands have an abundance of flour, which is shipped from Japon and China so cheaply, that it costs sixteen reals per quintal in the city of Manila. That shipped from Nueva España costs your Majesty, delivered in the said city of Manila, more than eighty reals per quintal.
From Nueva España to the said Filipinas Islands are also transported in the [ships], habas, garbanzos,”[15] and lentils, which are for the provision of hospitals, fleets, and convents. It serves no other purpose than to arrive at Manila rotten; and if any arrives in good condition, it does not seem so. For the provision of the fleets, a grain [semilla] is grown in that land [i.e., Filipinas] which resembles beans, and is very cheap. Consequently it is unnecessary for the ships to carry more than what they need for their voyage when they leave Acapulco.
A quantity of gerguetas[16] are also shipped from Nueva España to the said Filipinas Islands. They are said to be for the use of the soldiers, but that is unnecessary, for that land has other kinds of cloth—both those that are produced there, and others that come from China—which are better and cheaper. If your Majesty will order that to be stopped, it will be of much importance to your royal treasury, and will increase it by many ducados; while it will benefit greatly the soldiers who serve your Majesty in those islands, for, when this cloth is delivered there, they are obliged to take it.
In the former year of six hundred and sixteen, seven galleons were stationed at the city of Manila and the port of Cabite, one of which[17] came built from Yndia, and was bought in Pinacan for the service of your Majesty. The other six were built in the time of Don Juan de Silva, and Don Juan Ronquillo[18] took them all when he sailed in pursuit of the enemy at Playa Honda. These said galleys were in the greatest need of being repaired—one because it was very badly used up in the fight, and another because its decks had not been changed for two years; while most of them were holed along the sides by seaworms and leaked badly, and all their masts, yards, and topmasts were rotten. Consequently, Don Geronimo de Silva, captain-general of those islands, was preparing to send them to be repaired (except three) to the island of Marinduque, forty leguas from Manila, in order to avoid the expense of hauling the wood, while awaiting the arrival of the ships from Nueva España in which Don Alonso Fajardo came last year (one thousand six hundred and eighteen), in order to repair the said galleys with that money [brought by those ships]. He also intended to hold them in readiness, in order to comply with your Majesty’s orders, sent by a despatch-boat, to keep them so prepared that they might join the fleet that was about to sail with reënforcements by way of the cape of Buena Esperança, to make the journey to the Malucas Islands and drive the enemy from them.
It was necessary to equip two of the said seven galleys so that they could come to Nueba España last year, six hundred and eighteen, with the usual merchandise. Consequently only five were left—or rather six, with that in which Don Alonso Fajardo arrived. Since the said Don Alonso Fajardo has reached Manila and finds himselt with only six galleons, it becomes necessary to build some more; for, if the fleet from España has not sailed and the enemy learn that Manila has but six galleons, they will go to the mouth of the port and repeat their performance of last year, unless they go to El Embocadero[19] to await the ships from Nueva España with the reënforcements, for, in order that the loss of Manila and Maluco may be completed, nothing else is wanting.
As above stated, it will be necessary for Governor Don Alonso Fajardo to devise immediate means for building galleons and to repair the six at Manila. I regard the present building of ships in that country as impossible. For with the former ships and fleets, and with the depredations and deaths caused by the enemy in those districts the natives are quite exhausted; for, as I said above, in the former year of six hundred and seventeen the Mindanao enemy captured four hundred native carpenters and killed more than two hundred others. The year before that, six hundred and sixteen, in the expedition made by Don Juan de Silva to the strait of Cincapura, where he died, it was found from lists that more than seven hundred Indians, of those taken as common seamen (of whom more than two hundred were carpenters), died on that expedition. Before that, in the year six hundred and fourteen, the said Mindanao enemy captured in the islands of Pintados nine hundred odd Indians, of whom but few have been ransomed. In the shipbuilding and in the hauling of wood many have died. Consequently, on account of all combined, there is a lack of natives for the above works. Therefore your Majesty must order the said Don Alonso Fajardo, governor and captain-general of the said islands, that in case galleons are to be built, it should not be in the islands—on the one hand, on account of the short time that those woods last, and on the other because of the lack in that land of natives (occurring through the above-mentioned causes, and because those natives in the islands are serving in the fleets as common seamen and carpenters).