His Majesty has also given commission to your illustrious Lordship that, having heard the citizens in regard to the claim which they make of not being included in the two compositions of 630,000 pesos, the share of it which was levied upon them may be returned to them; since his Majesty says in his royal decree that he does not wish them to pay what they do not owe. Since all the considerations and arguments are fully stated in the said decree, I will, in order not to weary your illustrious Lordship, refer you to it, which also is very convenient, as will be seen, in serving to throw much light upon the affairs which your illustrious Lordship has to arrange and settle. Informatory decree regarding the question to what extent and on what plan shall the commerce of the islands with Nueva España hereafter proceed. The King. To the reverend father in Christ, Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, bishop of the cathedral church of the city of Puebla de los Angeles, member of my royal Council of the Indias, to whom I have entrusted the visitation of my royal Audiencia of the City of Mexico in Nueva España, and of its tribunals, and that of the port of Acapulco: on the part of Don Juan Grau y Monfalcòn, procurator-general of the distinguished and ever loyal city of Manila, the capital of the Philipinas Islands, he has in the name of that city presented to me a statement that, having set forth to me in another memorial the wretched condition in which those islands are, and offered various petitions regarding it, which have been examined in the said my royal Council of the Indias, they failed to come to a decision in the principal points, not only on account of their importance, but in order to wait for the despatches which they were expecting to come in the trading fleet. And among those which arrived with the fleet from Nueva España there were letters from the city of Manila and the governor of Philipinas, and from certain intelligent persons, all of which agree--in which, to judge from the condition of affairs, those islands were in evident risk of being ruined unless the relief which they needed were sent to them with the utmost promptness, by helping to give form to their commerce, on which is based their preservation and defense, in the returns of silver, in the succors [that they receive] in fighting men, and in aid from the seamen [who go there]. The said city of Manila and the governor, as men who so carefully bear in mind the losses [that the commerce has experienced] mention them in their letters; and the commissaries of the city (who reside in Mexico), with even more information of what the people of the said city did not know, have considered and noted these letters, since the remonstrances which the citizens have made were caused only by having received some information in general of the cruel acts of Don Pedro de Quiroga [y Moya], and that he had prohibited 600,000 pesos to the commerce. And when they knew that, besides the previous