Its population is composed of the soldiers who garrison its castle, and those of other posts; the sea-faring men who serve in the vessels of the [Acapulco] trade-route, and in various other vessels, in the royal service; and the men who compose the force of the navy-yard, for the repair and the building of ships. Among so many, the citizens of most prominence are the pilots, boatswains, and other officers of the ships and the Ribera. The entire government--political, military, and social--is in the hands of a warden and chief magistrate, who is not responsible to any one except the captain-general. Its principal fortification consists of the fort San Phelipe, the shape of which is an irregular quadrilateral; it is situated toward the point of the Ribera, at a distance from it of about 1,100 feet. It has four bastions with orillons, in old style; its western curtain, in which is its gate, has a fausse-braye; and its southern curtain, on the shore of the Ribera, has a barbette battery of twenty mounted cannons. A similar account of the two remaining curtains is omitted, because in them there is nothing new for notice. The circuit of the fort is 1,410 feet; and within it are located, in due order, lodgings sufficient for the soldiers in its garrison, an armory, a powder-magazine, a water reservoir, and other offices necessary to the service. On the western side, which is contiguous with the village of San Roque, this fort is also fortified by a curtain 540 feet long, which, with the two large towers which flank it, occupies the entire width of the tongue of land, and, with a revetted moat, leaves Cavite almost isolated; it would be feasible to make it entirely so by the union of the two bodies of seawater--with experience of fatal results, if the double defense of a counterscarp were not interposed. This curtain has, as a mask to its gate, a half-star work with its own gate, which is the one that people call Puerta Vaga; and these two entrances furnish, for the said town and Manila, the only passage by land that is found in this port.