The King: To Don Luis de Velasco, [47] my viceroy, governor, and captain-general of the provinces of Nueva Espana. Your predecessor in the government of those provinces, the Marques de Montes Claros, informed me by a letter of May 24 of last year that he had received my decree of August 19, one thousand six hundred and six, in which were contained the directions to be followed by him in the opening to navigation and the settlement of the new port of Monte Rey, discovered by Sevastian Vizcayno on the voyage from Nueva Espana to the Philipinas Islands. He stated that the decree could not be carried out in any respect, since it reached his hands when the trading fleet for those islands had already set sail, and since Sevastian Vizcayno--whom I had commanded to undertake that voyage and found the colony, as being the discoverer of the said port--had departed for that kingdom in the fleet of that year. He stated that with a view, above all, to reaching a decision in regard to what must be done for the prosecution of this business, it seemed to him well to inform me of what he had heard, and of what had been brought before him with reference to the matter. He took for granted that it was of great importance to discover a port where the ships returning from the Filipinas might stop to refit; for on so long a voyage the greatest part of the danger is due to the lack of a place where the injuries received in the voyage may be repaired. If no more suitable place should be found, he said, it would be advisable to make use of the port of Monte Rrey, of which he had been notified; but, to understand better the importance of this port, it would be well to notice that according to the survey made by the said Sevastian Vizcayno it seems to be in latitude thirty-seven, on the coast known as the coast of Nueva Espana, which runs from Cape Mendocino to Acapulco. Now while it is true that most of the ships on his voyage sight land within one or two degrees of that place, still, it must be understood that they always regard themselves as being at the end of their voyage and out of danger on the day when they reach there. This is so true that there have been ships which, when they were at the mouth of the harbor of Monte Rey, decided, as soon as they recognized it, not to enter it, but kept on their voyage with all sails spread. They felt that as soon as they sighted land anywhere they could go on, and, with favorable weather, reach the harbor of Acapulco in twenty-five or thirty days. The accidents and injuries caused by hurricanes--which are the things that place ships in jeopardy, and which oblige them to return to their port of departure, with so much loss--ordinarily occur from the time when they pass the cape of Spiritu Santo on the island of Manila, all along the chain of the Ladrones until they pass the end of Japon at the point called the Cape of Sestos and reach latitude thirty-two or thirty-three;