I preserve the authority of your Majesty, and free your conscience; and, provided that no one steals anything from your royal revenues, the support of these islands will be arranged for, without any help from Nueva Espana beyond the proceeds of the merchandise carried by the galleons. But by following this plan I have no need of anything else except that your Majesty be pleased to grant me permission to do this. May our Lord preserve your Majesty's Catholic person, as is necessary to Christendom. Manila, the last of June, one thousand six hundred and thirty-six. Your vassal kisses your Majesty's feet. Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera [_Endorsed_: "The governor of Filipinas to his Majesty, June 30, 1636. Revenue matters. June 10, 1638." "Let this matter be looked up, and see whether anything has been enacted concerning it; and take it to the fiscal, with whatever notices there are concerning it." "Nothing has been enacted." "The fiscal declares that it is written in this letter that there are four or five thousand Chinese who are now paying this duty, and that it can be increased to eighteen or twenty thousand pesos of income, while the additional sum that will be paid by each one will not amount to more than nine reals. That cannot be, except by admitting into the Filipinas Islands as many more thousand Chinese, as they say, as will amount to pesos. That will be running great risk, as is well known, especially in islands so remote and so sparsely settled. And if before, when there were so few Chinese, so careful provisions were made to have them remain shut up within their Parian, so that they could not make any changes in the condition of those islands, one would think that not without danger can this be changed, with the people who come in the ships, which they are commencing to do there. Besides that, to raise the impost on his own authority, without having informed the Council thereof until after it was executed, is a matter that furnishes a very bad example; and since the amount concerned is so small as thirty-six thousand reals (at nine reals apiece, on the four thousand pesos [_sic; sc._ Chinese] who he says are there), it is not desirable to risk for that sum the government--which, it has been found by experience, is without danger--and to expose it to the possibility of danger. Therefore he petitions that it be ordered that no innovation be made. Madrid, June 30, 1638."