2. It is literally this which is occurring in these islands. The Moros deride us, and display their superiority compared to our weakness, which certainly is ignominious to the Catholic arms, and to the reputation of the [Spanish] nation. When we had forces for punishing them, they were curbed and humiliated; since they have seen us poor and weak they have displayed their perfidy and boldness, and are treating us with the greatest insolence ever seen--for they invade even the villages along this bay, without there being, on our side, any means to prevent this. 3. The vassals of his Majesty, both Spaniards and natives, live in the sorrow which is aroused in them by their melancholy reflections on our poor and miserable condition. The Indians, who are civil only when they fear some punishment, regard their sovereign with little respect, and the Spanish nation with disgust at seeing it humiliated by the English, the Dutch, the French, and even the Moros; and they judge that the Spaniards are somewhat more than the Indians, but much less than the other nations. And, although they are confounded at the glorious successes which our armies have gained against the English since the capture of this military post, and at the heroic valor with which the unfaithful provinces have been punished, when they become aware of our actual poverty that will be enough to destroy their reverence and respect for the acts of the superior government, and to make them bold to commit any insolence, for our lack of means to restrain them from it. 4. For this same reason, nothing can be undertaken that will avail against the Moros who harass us, [120] or against the Indians who refuse obedience to the commands laid on them. The consequence of this is, that the scanty funds in the royal treasury are being consumed; that it is deprived of the receipts which it could have if we were in a respectable condition; and that a zealous governor of these islands labors and watches, in weariness and grief, to procure the remedy for so many evils, under the impossibility of finding it.