Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 10).djvu/200

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196
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
[Vol. 10

other Spanish possessions to China, but it is even decreed that the Chinese merchants coming here shall not take back Spanish money to China; and that merchandise shall not be exported from China on account of the Spaniards, but on account of the Chinese themselves. Even in the same instruction, in the two clauses immediately preceding the one to which I refer, your Majesty commands a thing incompatible with the sending of a vessel to China, which has been undertaken this year. Your Majesty decrees that all the goods coming from China should be sold at the pancada and that nothing should be bought on private account until after the pancada. The aforesaid decree would be futile if license were then to be given to send money to China, and also ships, to buy there the stuffs and merchandise for the Spaniards. It may be that there are those who represent that this has been done for the sake of opening a door to the evangelization of China; but such persons do not have as a profession the preaching of the gospel. The evident truth is what I state.

The sole correction for these evils, and for all the misfortunes of this land, is for your Majesty to send—besides a holy and learned archbishop, zealous in honoring God, your Majesty, and the common welfare—a disinterested and God-fearing governor, such as Don Luis Perez Dasmariñas, and, according to my information, Don Pedro Brabo de Acuña, who has been governor for some years in Cartagena in the Indias. But I understand that, at the receipt of these letters and other things, your Majesty will have ordered Don Francisco Tello to return [to España] and another governor will be provided. May God have granted light to your Majesty, and continue to