The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 25]

I635-I636] ROYAL DECREES, I633-35

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I be pleased so to order, and that their chests be not
opened; that permission be granted them so that each
seaman may carry up to seven thousand pesos of investments in that voyage, in which is to be included
the quantity which they have hitherto been permitted to carry; and that the castellan and my other
employees at the port of Acapulco shall cause them
neither vexations nor injuries. The matter having
been examined in my royal Council of the Yndias,
I have considered it fitting to issue the present, by
which I order you to observe and fulfil, and to
cause to be observed and fulfilled, the decree herein
incorporated, in toto and exactly as is therein contained, and that you do not violate it or pass beyond
its tenor and form.7 In its fulfilment, you shall give
what orders may be necessary, so that care may be
taken of those men at the port of Acapulco and so
that all proper facilities and despatch may be accorded them. Madrid, September 30, I633.
I THE KING
By order of the king our sovereign:
DON FRANCISCO RUIZ DE CONTRERAS
The King. To my governor and captain-general
of the Filipinas Islands, and president of my royal
Audiencia therein. Don Juan Grau y Monfalcon,
procurator-general of that city, has informed me that
I ordered, by a decree of May 23, I620, that the cargo
of the ships be distributed to the inhabitants with all
fairness; but that, contrary to the orders therein contained, the governors have introduced the custom of
giving a part of the cargoes to the sailors and seamen,
and to the soldiers, hospitals, works of charity,
7 The decree whose location is above given.