seas--except of the strait of Sincapura, where the Dutch keep all their forces--no little will be accomplished--even if your Majesty do not, as I said above, send one thousand Spanish soldiers. I do not mention the money, for neither can your Majesty send it; and I am planning here how to economize and to maintain myself with the royal duties, a few encomiendas, and the licenses of the Sangleys for the eight hundred thousand pesos which are spent in these islands. [_Marginal note_: "Bring the decree which gave rise to this paragraph, and the plan of Hermosa Island, and whatever has been written about this matter."] 10. In another decree, dated Madrid, January 30, 35, your Majesty commands that these ships shall sail from here so that they will reach Acapulco December first. Your Majesty gave me the same orders last year by another decree that they should leave this port, without fail, by June first. Having called a council of all the pilots, both chiefs and subordinates, they affirm and assert that the said ships cannot leave until the twelfth or fifteenth of July, because the vendabals--the winds with which they must sail--do not begin until that time, nor are they strong until the early days of August; and the ships waste the said fifteen days in sailing the eighty leguas which they have to make among the islands to reach the Embocadero of San Bernardino. For at times when they have sailed earlier they have been detained, before they could leave the channel, one or two months, in which time they have consumed a large part of the supplies for the voyage; and as a result, many of the men have died, from the hardships of the voyage or from want of food. For all these and many other reasons, I entreat that your Majesty will be pleased to believe that I shall not waste time in these despatches, as best suits the service of your Majesty and the benefit of your vassals. I have spared the viceroys of Mexico from sending flour, oil, fodder, and a thousand other things for the equipment of the soldiers, of which there is no lack there--as how I am informing the viceroy, the Marques de Cadereyta, in the memoranda which I am sending him. By this your Majesty has been saved a great part of your revenue, as well as by the galleons not being repaired in Acapulco; for the viceroy did nothing more to them after the necessary repairs from the calkers and carpenters who went on the ships. In a little more than a month, they could be again sent to sea; and they did not spend, at most, more than five months in going from here, three in returning, and one in the port. [_Marginal note_: "Tell him that those ships are to depart at the time which shall seem most seasonable, since the orders do not intend that they shall set out with evident loss and risk at the time which has been fixed. While matters remain as they are, therefore, he shall make such arrangements as are most expedient."]