I am obliged in conscience to inform your Majesty (in case my own efforts should prove insufficient) of all that I shall esteem worthy of correction in your royal service; and of what I saw in the port of Acapulco, where I embarked, and in the ships up to the present. In order to be able to do so, it is necessary for me to repeat in brief the favors and privileges which your Majesty has conceded to these inhabitants of Manila, in order to show them favor, with the desire that they increase in numbers, and so that they alone may enjoy the fruits of the trade and traffic of these provinces, entirely excluding from it the inhabitants of Nueva Espana. Surely this is an important matter, but the custom and malice of men has had so much influence that experience shows us that neither that which your Majesty orders is sufficient, nor do the citizens of Manila realize the value of the favors which they receive. The worst of all is that, to judge from the condition of affairs, there is no one from whom to obtain the fitting remedy. The principal abuse is that, although your Majesty ordered that no money pass from Nueva Espana here, and although you granted permission to these inhabitants to receive only five hundred thousand ducados, a way has been found whereby they secretly send annually as much as they wish--and that without the said prohibition being any hindrance to any person of Nueva Espana, or those of any other region. The governors my predecessors have had knowledge of this abuse, but they have not dared to remedy it because of the annoyances that arise in so well-established a practice, and one in which nearly all the vassals of your Majesty are included. For this same reason, and because I have so recently arrived, I have considered it fitting to inform your Majesty, so that, in so grave a matter, you may determine what will be most fitting to your royal service. [_In the margin_: "Send this letter to Don Juan de Palafox, so that he may be informed of it." "Seen by the [_word illegible in MS._] J. Palafox."]