Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 11).djvu/117

must undergo and pass through. Accordingly, if your Majesty pleases, a reasonable allowance for their expenses might be made, and soldiers given them to accompany and guard them, with good vessels, at the expense of the royal exchequer, if the cost should not be covered by the penalties inflicted during the visitation. Your Majesty will be pleased to order in this what is most expedient.

[In the margin: "Write to the governor to have this visitation carried out in the pacified country, and where there is no obstacle, conformably to the ordinance. And have him see to it that they do not send soldiers with the auditor, and that he does not take people who would be oppressive to the Indians; and let him take care that this visitation be effectual—for which purpose let him command to be built, and furnished to the auditor, a vessel of suitable size, to go outside of the island of Luzon, at his Majesty's expense. As to the reimbursement which ought to be made beside what is conceded to them by the ordinance, and the decrees of his Majesty, let him inform us of his opinion." "Have sent a duplicate of the last decree despatched in regard to this visitation."]

The main object of your Majesty's royal decrees, provisions, and orders given to your governors of these islands, is the prosperity of the citizens thereof; for in that way they become established and settled and the islands populated. The governors have not always attended to this as they should, for they have regarded this, which is their principal obligation, as accessory and dependent upon their private interests in order that they may become rich with what the citizens are to gain, as is already well known. And so little is the profit, and so poor the subsistence, of