Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 03).djvu/186

 the hot climate. They do not bring to sell the silks and beautiful things that they take to Malaca. They say that, if there were any one to buy them, they would bring all we wanted; and so, since trading with the Spaniards, they bring each year better and much richer wares. If merchants would come from Nueva España, they might enrich themselves, and increase the royal customs in these parts—both through trade and through the mines, the richness and number of which are well-known to us.

Your Majesty knows how antagonistic the Portuguese are in everything here. When they can do us no harm in their own persons, they try to do so through others. Last year Chinese vessels came to this city to trade and told us how the Portuguese had asked them not to trade with us, because we were robbers and came to steal and commit other depredations, so that these people wonder not a little if this be true. As the treatment accorded to the Chinese neutralizes these reports, more vessels came this year than last, and each year more will come. I advise your Majesty of this, because it is better to have certain peace or open war with the Portuguese, and not to be uncertain, and not to have them trying to harm us at a distance. Every year we are disturbed by fears of their coming. This year I had news from Moro merchants, who came from the island of Borney, that last year their king had collected a large fleet to descend upon us. After having embarked, he gave up for the time the voyage because of the severe storms; but gave out that he would return this year and bring the Portuguese with him. I exerted myself to get together the Spaniards, who were pacifying these islands and had the island of