The tribute of the half-annats which his Majesty commands to be paid by the public offices which enjoy honor and salaries is a burden on many provinces (and especially on that of Leite, in which these half-annats, recently raked up [suscitadas] are collected)--although it is a fact that the [native] governors of those provinces do not receive salaries or desire such honor; rather, they shun it on account of their poverty. From [the attempt at] constraining them the following results ensue: first, they flee to the mountains; second, those who do not flee are compelled to remain slaves, or else bind themselves for their whole lives, in order to find means for paying this half-annat, so grievous a tax and so against their wills. His Majesty has given orders to fortify and repair the village of Cavite, because on it depends, in truth, the preservation and guardianship of this city, the safety of the castle of San Felipe, and that of many intrenchments and various houses, and of the royal storehouses, which his Majesty possesses there. [Moreover,] a large Christian community has gathered in that place; and there are four churches, and three houses of religious orders, with a considerable number of citizens. All these things strongly enforce the necessity of executing the said royal decree of his Majesty, for the preservation, promotion, and protection of all those religious orders and vassals--although our opinion inclines to suppose that there must have been reasons more important than these for suspending the royal mandate of his Majesty; and if these do not exist it surely seems that this state of affairs calls to your Lordship for amendment. The most holy and awful sacrifice of the mass depends on the pious and punctual provision which his Majesty has made in having wine brought here for the celebration of mass; and this wine, as for the rest, cannot be sure. It seems that in recent years it has been required [from Mexico by the officials of Filipinas] in so small quantities that often not even the amount ordered by his Majesty is delivered; from this it results that, as this deficiency cannot be made good, there is a failure in saying many masses. Even in the oil for the lamps that burn before the blessed sacrament there is a great deficiency [in the supply], for two reasons: either because it is not delivered, or because it is delivered in places very far away. These two matters are, without doubt, worthy of your Lordship's most careful attention--from whose Christian veneration for the blessed sacrament and well-known piety our solicitude desires and expects an entire and complete remedy.