[14.] Erection of the bridge; and how the hospital has been given the revenue produced by the ferry boat.
The bridge which I began in this city (as I have advised you during the last few years) is now in such a condition that we can cross by it. It will be finished in a couple of months without having cost the citizens or your Majesty a single maravedi. The Sangleys have built it from their common fund, with which they have been freed from the amount that the ferry-boat cost them. The latter belonged to the hospital of the same Sangleys, which is in charge of the Dominican fathers; and it netted them at least two thousand pesos annually. They maintained themselves with that sum; and accordingly, so that that hospital, so necessary for that nation, might not be left without support, it has seemed best, with the consent of the Audiencia, to assign to the hospital the same sum of two thousand pesos per year from the common fund of the same Sangleys, with their consent. Thus will it be done, and the Sangleys do not pay any ferry rate, but support the hospital, in which they are treated, from their common fund. Your Majesty is patron of it as ever, the fathers happy, and the poor well provided for. [In the margin: “File this with what is enacted in the petition of the Dominican fathers.” “This section was filed with a memorial given by Fray Mateo de Villa.” “It is decreed in the memorial and what is to be answered, here on a separate paper.”]
15. Sickness in Manila this year, and death of the archbishop
I hope to construct other works this year, if our Lord gives me life, with which this city will be no less beautified. There has been but little health in this city and its environs this year, with many sudden deaths, both of Spaniards and Indian natives and slaves. Among others has passed away the archbishop Don Fray Miguel Garcia Serrano, who died on Corpus Christi, as is written at greater length in the letter touching the ecclesiastical estate. [In the margin: “Seen.”]
16. Arrival of the aid and ships from Nueva España
Just as I reached this point in my letter, and when about to seal it, I received news that the two ships which sailed for Nueva España last year for the reënforcement have returned with it; and that they have made port in different parts of these islands, because the weather did not allow them to reach this port of Cavite. They left Nueva España late, and the vendavals set in early. Hence the voyage has been one of hardships, and it was a great mercy of God that they were able to make the islands, although not little is the discomfort and not few the additional expenses that have been incurred because of their inability to make this port. What I grieve over most is to see the inadequacy of the aid, which does not reach two hundred and fifty thousand pesos, while I informed the viceroy that we needed four hundred thousand, as I wrote last year. Consequently, I again petition your Majesty in the same terms as in that letter, to be pleased to endow these islands with the said sum, so that it may not be at the will of the viceroys of Nueva España to discontinue sending it. This is the chief point, and on it is based all the government of these islands, so that we may be able to give a good account of them to your Majesty. [In the margin: “Have what was enacted for this examined.” “The enactments were examined, and filed with this section for the Council. Answered on a separate paper.”]
17. Aid of artillery sent to the viceroy
The viceroy of Nueva España asks me for bronze artillery with which to fortify the fortress of San Juan de Ulua, sending me twenty-four thousand pesos for the expense of it. Although the ships have arrived so late that I have had no time to cast it in the quantity and of the quality that he asks, I am sending him the equivalent [of the money] in eighteen excellent pieces from what we have already manufactured, with which I think that that fort will be well defended, and the viceroy will have the pieces with which to go to succor the fort if it should be necessary. He tells me that he wishes some of the artillery which he has asked of me for that purpose. [In the margin: “It is well, and let him execute what the viceroy shall advise him of in this respect.”]
May God preserve the Catholic and royal person of your Majesty with the increase of kingdoms and states that is necessary to Christendom. Cavite, August first, 1629. Sire, your Majesty’s humble vassal,
Don Juan Niño de Tavora