Don Juan Grau y Monfalcon, procurator-general of the distinguished and ever loyal city of Manila, capital of the Filipinas Islands, makes, by authority of that city, the following declaration. Since the preservation of the islands is the most efficient means for that of all the states which this crown holds and possesses in Eastern India and adjacent parts, and consequently [of all those] in the Western Indias; and as it is positively known that there is no other way of assuring this end except by the commerce conceded to the islands with Nueva España--which is in such a condition that by only reducing it, or by deranging it as regards its amount, or the manner in which it is carried on, it will be necessary that it cease; and that if the inhabitants lose what supports them, all the islands will be lost: some persons, and especially Captain Francisco de Vitoria Baraona, with less attention and knowledge than is requisite in treating a matter so remote, serious, and politic--which demands so much more than ordinary foundation for its proper understanding [on account of not understanding it--_MS._]--proposed to your Majesty certain expedients or counsels; but, although these should be directed to the increase of the forces which the arms of España maintain in the seas of the Orient, in order to oppose them to the numerous enemies who are trying to overthrow our power in those seas, and have the desire to end it, one would believe that they were directed with especial purpose to weaken and obscure that power, and thereby to extinguish the best and most creditable [finest--_MS._] military post that this great monarchy possesses outside of Europa. And inasmuch as the matter pertains not only to the conservation of those vassals, but also to the general subject of your Majesty's service, your vassals, attending more to this consideration than to even that result--although the one does not suffer without the other, since some orders originating from the expedients proposed by the said Captain Francisco de Vitoria, have begun to be put in force in Nueva España--and recognizing from their beginnings how much the issues are in danger and how important it is to heed in time the dangers that threaten, and successfully to prevent them, on account of the impossibility that they can be checked later (for it is easy, at the beginning, to overcome what, when it is once introduced, is usually impossible to conquer), are attempting to represent those dangers in this informatory memorial, which they lay at your Majesty's royal feet. In it, taking occasion from that which is most important and weighty, all the affairs of the Filipinas Islands will be touched upon, and those of their conservation, government, and commerce--and all with the truth, thoroughness, accuracy and knowledge that ought to be used, not only in general, but in each one specifically; so that once explained, in a complete report of