34th. The most considerable and valuable part of the abundant aid that your Majesty was informed was given me in Nueva Spana, when I came here, was the soldiers; and of them the most and best, and those who made the best appearance, were the men that I brought from Spana. The greater part of these, or nearly all, came aided and helped with my money, and even with the plate and silver pieces of my household. I do not know that notice of it should have been given to your Majesty, for one should not charge to you so slight a service to whom all his possessions, his blood, and his life are due. Consequently, I am not surprised that this should have been passed by for another. [_Marginal note_: "It is well."] 35th. The number of tributes will be placed in the titles of the encomiendas, what they pay, the value of their products, and in what district they are located, as your Majesty orders. Your Majesty has some encomiendas apportioned to your royal crown, some distance from here and in a district where their products cannot be used. That is the most serious thing; for the collectors generally defraud [the royal officials] by saying that it was a bad year, and that they collected in money. If they confess to have collected something in kind, they say that it was too great trouble to bring it; and they sell it there, as they wish--perhaps selling it at retail to one who immediately returns it to them, and, besides this, harassing the Indians. On account of the distance, that is not often discovered, and less often can it be proved. And so that your Majesty might have much greater benefit from another equal number of tributes, I think that, as the encomiendas of private persons of La Pampanga and those in other districts near here, which yield a good harvest in products, continue to fall vacant, they should be exchanged for the said distant ones; for the latter will not be unsuitable with which to reward services. If they have a private person as encomendero, the Indians will be much better treated, and the tributes will be well collected and administered, with more justification and mildness. The tributes near here will result well for your Majesty through the profit on those paid in kind, which can come from this bay overland and by rivers, straight to the door of the magazines. It would be better for your Majesty to have charge of them than the encomenderos, for they are so near the Indians that they never fail to gather in a harvest of some kind--either in services, or some other thing. Being so near the governor, no collector would dare to treat the Indians badly. For the above reasons I think that I shall place this in execution as opportunity offers, unless I am so strongly opposed in this as in other things, that I would be embarrassed in it--although I cannot see what arguments they would have for doing so.