Also with this trade and profit many merchants and other people from España and this land are going to live in those islands, and continue to settle there. Thus the country is made safe, because, when any necessity arises, they take arms and incur the dangers of war, so that the natives of the said islands and of those surrounding are peaceable, and fear the Spaniards. If these and the trade that they now maintain should fail, and if your Majesty should not supply as many more men at his own cost, it is well-known that with the instability and suspicious nature of those peoples, they would rebel, and recover the liberty that they have lost. Worse than that, they would return to the heresy or the heathenisms which they professed a little while ago. Moreover, by this means the encomenderos and settlers of those islands get a profit out of the customs, trade, and commerce, because from their tributes and profits they derive a good income. Before they had it, they were in need. From the said China they provide themselves with biscuit, flour, meat, fruits, clothes, gunpowder, iron, and many other things which they greatly need, and which the said islands lack. If they had to bring those articles from this kingdom, they might not have them on account of their dearness, and since they, without their trade, are so poor. Accordingly, it not only does not embarrass or hinder the settlement of the said islands; but rather they find it very difficult to support themselves and achieve success without the said trade and commerce. It will surely result in greater cost to your Majesty, if the trade can[not] be conducted as heretofore; and if provision must be made as on the frontiers of Oran, Tanger, or Melilla. Even those who avoid sending their money to those districts, send it to the islands. It is not in such a way as understood hitherto, that the prompt despatch of the fleets is hindered; because, although they do not send their money thither now, they will be able to send it--namely, to Piru and Guatemala--and to employ it in other ways in this land, without obliging them necessarily to send it to España, if the gains that they attain are not so certain as they would have them.