I think that they will already have come to your Majesty's ears. A few days ago the governor introduced in this royal camp of Manila a cavalry company of twenty-nine men or soldiers, with their captain, one lieutenant, one alférez, one standard-bearer, and one corporal; each soldier was to receive 168 pesos' pay per annum, the captain 1,200, the lieutenant, 480, the alférez, 380, the corporal, 216, and one trumpler, 120--the total amounting to 7,248 pesos. It was for the sole purpose of being employed nightly in squads to close the gates of the city and to patrol it; and it was all to spare the infantry from fatigue, although the latter had until then been employed in that duty with much more security to the city, and with the correction of many lawless acts which we have been experiencing here since, and which have been committed by the very men who are deputed to obviate them. When the said governor ordered us to inscribe that new order in the royal books, and to furnish the papers to the said soldiers with pay so increased, we, seeing of how little importance and effectiveness the said company was, and that there was no order from your Majesty for its creation, warned him of that--besides giving him other reasons which will already have been seen by your Council, for we enclosed a copy of both of them in the letters that we wrote in the year 1636. Still, notwithstanding that, the governor ordered the command to be obeyed. Accordingly we did so, and the command has been, and is being, observed; and the governor refuses to recede in so pernicious a decision as is the increase of [expenses with] pay so large as this, and so unnecessary, and, moreover, when your royal treasury in these islands has so many and so great necessities.