8. The recent example of Pangasinan is the most melancholy warning. What obstinacy and blindness! what insolence and aversion toward the Spaniards! What treasons and apostasies! What murders, so inhuman and cruel! It is certain that the Indians desire to throw off the mild yoke of the Spaniards; that they are Christians, and vassals of our king, simply through fear, and fail to be either Christians or vassals when they consider us weak; and that they neither respect nor obey any one, when they find an opportunity for resistance.
9. The revolted Indians in the island of Bohol solemnize weddings among themselves, confer baptism, and perform other functions of the Catholics, for which purpose they have some persons who perform the duties of the father ministers in the villages; and this mockery, this scorn, this contumely they display for what is most sacred in our religion. They have fled from the villages, and live in their freedom in the hills; yet for this conduct they have experienced only kind treatment and promises of pardon, to which they do not, and never will, pay any attention. If we had troops and money, those insurgents would be reduced; they would be good Christians and vassals, and the royal treasury would possess the receipts from their tributes; for only the fear of punishment is adequate to subject the Indians, and draw them toward what is right.
10. More recent is the case of Pangasinan, whose natives had just been making the same mockery of our Catholic religion, and showing the same contempt for it; but chastisement has reduced them to being Christians and vassals to our king. It is argued from this that, so long as we have not the forces for coercing the Indians, they will be our greatest and most terrible enemies—from whom we cannot free ourselves, save by the measure of abandoning the islands, in case we do not maintain them with respectable forces.
Chapter Second: Of the difficulties which will result from abandoning these islands
1. Not many years had passed after their conquest when it was recognized in España that, in order to support them, it was necessary to expend much money; and the question arose whether it was more expedient to maintain these new domains, or to abandon them. Opinions were expressed on both sides: some urged that but little advantage had resulted to the crown from spending immense sums of money in this country, so distant from its sovereign—who, besides the fact that it did not promise him much profit, could not render it assistance with the promptness which was necessary. Others, on the contrary, urged that under no circumstances ought these islands to be abandoned, which were conferring such glory on our arms, victorious in the four quarters of the world, in which resounded the power of our sovereign, and his royal and Catholic zeal for the salvation of so many souls.
2. Our king and sovereign Don Phelipe the Second, of glorious memory, embraced this latter opinion, with that apostolic and heroic resolution, so celebrated in our histories, that “for the sake of one single soul that might be saved, he would consider well employed the moneys that were being spent in these islands.”
3. I believe that to this religious motive others were added, of policy and state, for maintaining these islands, which, although at the beginning they would consume much money—as occurs in every new colonizing enterprise, which [sort of work] is not done for nothing—at the same time promised great advantages, on account of the valuable products which they yielded, and the great number of people who were conquered. Efforts in this enterprise were made for several years, with the greatest ardor; the chimerical projects of Terrenate and the Molucas were begun, which cost us infinite expense; and, on the other hand, we were harassed by the Moros, with the Dutch, who were aiding them as enemies to this conquest, which they feared would be their ruin—an indication that we had a better opportunity than they to aggrandize ourselves with the commerce of all India, which would have yielded to us the very profits which they feared to lose. And we, occupied in defending ourselves from so many enemies, have not thought of making any progress, but only of leaving everything as the famous Legaspi established it—and yet continually with new burdens, on account of the creation of new offices, the increase of missions, and other expenses, which exceeded the income of this royal treasury, and were made up from that of Mexico.
4. Freed at last from the aforesaid enemies, have not retrieved their condition since that time. They have had but few troops, and this government has not been able to make itself respected, or to restrain the invasions of the Moros. Nor is it able to undertake enterprises that would be useful in the provinces, in order that these might produce for the royal revenues the great increase which they bid fair to yield, and for which plans would be made, [if the support of the government could be given], by those who were of opinion that these islands should be preserved. As is admitted by [those of] all nations, these islands are the most fertile, abundant, and rich, and the country the most delightful, in all India; and no other region is so well suited for [the center of] a flourishing commerce, on account of their situation. [For they lie midway] between the empire of China, the kingdoms of Siam and Cochinchina, the islands of Celebes and Molucas, the kingdom of Borney, Vengala, the coasts of Coromandel and Malavar, Goa, Persia, and other populous regions which have made the [mercantile] companies of Olanda and Inglaterra rich. With greater reason would they be able to increase the wealth of España, if in these islands were cultivated their many valuable products, which are greatly esteemed in the aforesaid colonies, and if these products found there the market which foreign goods now enjoy. The whole matter consists in restoring our commerce with the same courage and perseverance which the foreigners display, for which design the abandonment of these islands would be very pernicious—even laying aside religious motives, which are powerful to the Catholic zeal of the Spaniards.
5. I find another and greater objection to the abandonment of these islands; that is, that the English would securely establish themselves therein, for they have shown themselves eager and greedy for the advantages which the islands present. In that case, they would easily carry on, by way of the Southern Sea, an illicit commerce with Nueva España—where they could land wherever they might please, and without difficulty make themselves masters of the Californias, in order to continue, with this advantage, the discoveries by which they have sought to find a passage to the Eastern Indias by the [route] northwest from Hudson’s Bay (called thus from the name of an English captain). With this object there was formed, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a company of English merchants, who, as a result of their latest enterprises (in the years 1746 and 1747),[3] have reasonable expectations of finding a way of communication between the Northern and the Southern Seas, according to the critical account of a modern geographer.
6. West of Canada and of the Misisipi River is the great gulf of the Western Sea,[4] which falls [into the ocean] above [i.e., north of] Cape Mendocino; it was discovered by the Spaniard Martin de Aguilar, and it is judiciously conjectured that it extends a considerable distance toward the lands of the northern region in which is situated the strait of Anian, according to the discoveries of the Russians in 1728, 1731, and 1741—which have a certain agreement with those of the aforesaid Aguilar, and especially with those which our admiral Don Bartholome Fuente and his captain Pedro Bernarda made in the year 1640,[5] north of California and northwest from Canada.