Note 3 — AND ADVANTAGES WHICH THEY CAN YIELD TO HIS MAJESTY CARLOS III

The first point: As the products of the Philipinas Islands are enumerated by the reverend Father Murillo (whom may God keep in Paradise), whom I have cited, and those of each island separately, in order not to extend this little work needlessly I will state the most important ones, which are the following: Rice, sugar, cotton (of choice quality and very fine), indigo, sulphur, siguey, balate, wax, pepper, coffee, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl; gold, mines of iron, and mines of copper (like that of Japon); tobacco, brazil-wood [sibucao], and pearl-fisheries; oil, cacao, birds’-nests, and ebony wood; lead (I believe that, as for the soil in some parts of Bisayas,3 it melts into lead, just as in the island of Mauricius, which belongs to the French, it melts into iron); cocoanuts, which produce abundance of oil;4 horses; deer and buffaloes, from which the people make what they call tapa [i.e., dried beef], and also use the sinews; and bichuca, or rattans.5