The assessment for each tribute is regulated at ten reals, and it includes two tribute-payers, the husband and wife; nevertheless, the Indians who have no fixed abode are burdened with the requirement that each individual taxed shall pay an entire tribute of ten reals each--although it is believed that this increase was imposed as a penalty, and in order that certain people might be reduced to villages and barangays; for it is evident, from the method of [planning] the tribute, that the imposition or the increase of the tributes is one of the peculiar and exclusive prerogatives of the supreme sovereignty belonging to his Majesty. These injuries, Sir, and these oppressions which extend through all the provinces, to the destruction of the poor, are certainly worthy of action [on your part], and constitute a legitimate obligation on your vigilance, and on the high office which his Majesty entrusted to your Lordship. Probably it has contributed much to these pernicious results and this neglect of sacred things that in these recent years the principal aim and object of the supreme government of these islands, as well as of the alcaldes-mayor, has been only the increase of the royal revenue--actually reversing the royal orders, which decree that the first attention must be paid to religion, and to the ecclesiastics and their affairs and maintenance; and after that to the civil government and justice. But, contrary to these orders, it appears that in everything the first place has been attained by the [affairs of] the royal treasury, which ought to engage the later solicitudes [of the royal ministers]--and then without that excessive severity [of administration] which has been experienced in recent years, [and which has aroused our] pity and compassion.