Note 4 — Treasury Matters

The second point discussed in the council is also essential; and if it be carried out, it will be the greatest [36] relief to the islands, and will result in great saving for your Majesty. In the rations of rice (which is the bread of this country) which are furnished in Cavite and other parts, more than fifty thousand fanegas are consumed annually. This is imposed on the Indian natives by assessment or allotment,4 and is paid at the rate of a peso per fanega. For the last three years the Chinese, both infidels and Christians, have devoted their efforts to sowing rice. Consequently, the country has been well supplied, as the Chinese are better farmers than the Indians. Many citizens and the convents of the religious orders have given them the loan of lands and twenty-five pesos per head, so that they might settle and equip themselves with the necessary implements for farming the land. The first year the Chinaman pays this sum, and the following years gives for every hundred brazas of land fifteen or twenty pesos rent, which is a like number of fanegas of rice. It has seemed to me expedient that in certain uncultivated lands that rightly remain in the name of your Majesty in the best region and lands of the islands (which is near here, in La Laguna de [Bay], five leguas up the river from Manila), two pieces of land should be appropriated [for this purpose]. I am assured that these will be sufficient so that two thousand Sangleys can be established on them; and that your Majesty will make the profit which the inhabitants and the religious make, since you can do so with greater advantage and protection to the farmers than private persons [37] can give. I am also assured that a very productive agricultural estate can be made, by managing to obtain from it the cost in one or two years. For the rest of the time the rent is left free [from debt or other obligation]. For two thousand Sangleys that will amount to forty thousand fanegas of rice; and, as it increases with time, it will amount to fifty thousand. That is as much as these magazines need. [In the margin: “Let us be informed whether any of the expenses of those islands have been reduced.” “Bring the memorandum of the reduction that was made in the year 618.”]