Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 08).djvu/52

 well able to [select them (?)—illegible in MS.] properly; and those whom I brought and know are occupied in other duties and neither [know(?)] the language nor are acquainted with the country.

The dependence which the Indians have upon your Lordship as one to shelter them and to defend them as bishop and father; and, beyond this, as protector, to try and relieve them and to negotiate with the person whom the king shall maintain here concerning all that shall be to their good, and to ward off all that would be grievous to them—all this is very just and proper in your Lordship, and very necessary to the Indians as poor, wretched beings. Although I have always told them to go to you or to the alcaldes-mayor, who would report their suits or troubles to your Lordship or to me, I did not, my Lord, intend to give them occasion that on pretext of this, or of protection, they should come with every childish trifle to Manila from their villages, perhaps very far away. And it is not two or four Indians who come, but often a whole village, with their women and children. But whether they come in small or in great numbers, they stay here, spending in petitions more than the thing which they are suing for is worth, while they are needed at home by their sowed fields, their plants, their young cattle, their wives, their children, their houses, and for their services to the community and the church and others. One might come on a business of importance, as I have ordered. Now your Lordship sees how annoying this is, and how you should wean them from repeating these comings and goings, in which they work their own harm and ruin themselves; and so, except in very important cases, their trouble and our time