whom affection for their native land is always drawing away. If this [which I have mentioned above] happens (which may God not permit), all these millions of Christian natives will be left abandoned, and exposed to [the danger of] returning to their heathen condition; and of being possessed by the Dutch, or the Chinese, or any other nation that may find a profit in them." The argument that the prohibition of the trade in Chinese silks will check the drain of silver from Nueva España is refuted by the provincial; he says, "For we who are near China, Batabia, the Coromandel Coast, and other ports of India, know with certainty that the ships and pataches that come to them from Europa to trade in them carry hardly any money for their traffic except the silver, with the stamp and seal of your Majesty, from Perù or from Mexico; and as those vessels have directed their route from Europa by way of Cape Verde, Buena Esperanza [i.e., Good Hope], Cape Comorin, and Sincapura, it must be supposed that they do not obtain the said silver anywhere else than from the commerce in Europa. Your Majesty could, in the course of several years, prevent the silver that comes from Mexico to these islands from passing over to China, to the Coast, or to Batabia, by commanding your governors and other officials at Manila to make strenuous efforts that in the islands the natives, mestizos, creoles, and various other castes who live in them and are naturalized as subjects, be compelled to weave the cloth goods which are manufactured in other regions; and these people are no less skilful for the mechanical and even the liberal arts than are those of other nations. As for the fabrics of cotton, these people are able to weave them, for their own consumption, more durable and of better quality than the cloths which come from China and the Coast; and as for the silk goods, the hose which these natives weave are those which bring the highest price at Acapulco. The colors for dyeing the goods are furnished by the country itself; for there will be shipped from here to the empire of China during this year more than thirty champan-loads of sibucao, or campeche, a wood from which the Chinese obtain carmine for their dyes; and the other colors they obtain from trees and roots which also are found in these mountains in abundance. As for the cinnamon, it grows very abundantly in the island of Mindanao, where your Majesty has the fort and garrison of Samboangan, with some missions that are administered by priests of my order, and by other religious from the discalced of St. Augustine. It would be of no little advantage to be able to cultivate the cinnamon, as the Dutch do; for the silver which that nation would be obliged to carry for that product would remain among the vassals of your Majesty, and thus there would be an end to that difficulty (which the merchants of Sevilla certainly exaggerate) of your Majesty forbidding the shipment of the goods which your royal decree specifies, which