Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 07).djvu/259

 slowly than to harass one who is unable to do more; and it has been the treasury of your Majesty which has aided us least.

Your Majesty's command that the religious should not depart from the bishopric without license of your Majesty, or that of the governor and myself, is a very just thing, and therefore it will be carried out; because it also seems fitting to me not to let the religious depart from here, where they are so few and so many are needed. Before this ship arrived the president and I had despatched two Dominican religious to Chincheo, which is the province of China nearest to this land, and the place whence all the Sangleys who come here to trade set forth. In this departure there was a punctual observance of what your Majesty commands in this clause of your letter, although we had not then received it. And owing to the fact that before we determined to send them, and at the time when we sent them, there occurred many notable things from which your Majesty should receive much satisfaction, I thought it better, in order not to make this letter so long, to place them by themselves in another, which will accompany this one, in order to give your Majesty a more detailed account of things so worthy to be heard.

With regard to what your Majesty orders concerning the remission of tithes for twenty years to those who now come to settle and who may come in the future, I would to God that the Spaniards were inclined to cultivate the land and to gather the fruits from it, rather than that we should ever afflict the natives by tithes. But your Majesty should know that when a man comes to this country, even if he were a beggar in Spain, here he seeks to be a gentleman, and