in this, and renders accounts to the general post-office department in Spain.] A sub-inspector of engineers newly created, just went to Manila with orders to extend the fortifications of the capital to its suburbs. The suburbs contain about fifty thousand inhabitants scattered throughout various villages which are composed of houses all of one story in height, which is enough to give an idea of the extension of the imagined fortification. The amount of artillery for garrisoning their walls, the workshop necessary to keep the artillery in good condition, the garrison necessary for their defense, besides the operating gangs: all were to be in the greatest magnitude, and demand an annual expense which the treasury of the colony could not even remotely meet. And if one reflect that the enemy can take all the other islands and even disembark at any point of Luzon itself without the necessity of going to Manila; that if this capital were besieged, it would be by enemies coming by sea, and hence, being masters of the port, they would very quickly take by hunger a place of one hundred and fifty thousand souls, or indeed it would be surrendered by the natives, and then the inhabitants, instead of contributing to the defense, would open their doors to the aggressors; and that the concentration of the forces, the property, the archives, and public and private wealth, at one single enclosed point, is to form a target to call the attention of exterior and interior enemies: we can do no less than agree that the plan of extending the fortifications of Manila to all its suburbs lacks all reasonable foundation, and that it will be advocated only by the many people who possess houses on the shores of the Pasig River, within cannon range, because of their fear lest, if the events of 1762 are again repeated, all those edifices which they were by a fatal lack of foresight permitted to raise successively (an evil which it is now very difficult if not impossible to remedy), would be leveled to the ground. [However, the present condition of the treasury will not allow this plan to be executed. The sub-inspector of the artillery has petitioned that all companies of the regiment be commanded by captains of the staff. This would cause discontent among the subalterns who would see all hope of promotion vanish forever. They can rise now only to captain, and some of them are even now angry. The artillery corps has always been loyal to the government and it is advisable to keep it so. Officers might indeed be trained in the military college, but in that case the promotion of the sergeants must be arranged for. Complaints of the military in the Philippines mean more than they do in Spain where the complainers are retired or exercise patience. But this substitution may be made without consulting the governor, as it is a matter concerning the artillery itself.]