Note 1 — LETTER FROM VELA TO GONZALEZ

The letter which you wrote from Madrid arrived together with that of this place, but no other has arrived. By the same boat also came [news of] the peace, whereupon the English again delivered the place to our governor.1 It was almost bare of cannon, as the English had taken them. For eighteen months were we under the rule of the heretic, with sufferings greater than can be imagined there. They acted toward us worse than do the victorious Turks toward those whom they conquer. However, Manila well deserved it, not indeed, because of its total lack of all Christian procedure, but singularly because of its cursed neglect of politics, as if the whole world had to respect and fear us because of our boasting that we are Spaniards.