Autograph signature of Alonso Fajardo de Tenza; photographic
facsimile from MS. in Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla
Title-page of _Memorial y relacion_, by Hernando de los Rios
Coronel (Madrid, 1621); photographic facsimile from copy in
Library of Congress





Preface


The documents in the present volume cover a wide range. In greater
or less detail are discussed affairs in the islands--civil, military,
and religious, in which all the various ramifications of each estate
are touched upon. Reforms, both civil and religious, are urged and
ordered; and trade and commerce, and general economic and social
conditions pervade all the documents. The efforts of Dutch, English,
French, Portuguese, and Spanish in eastern waters are a portent of
coming struggles for supremacy in later times. Japan, meditating on the
closed door to Europeans, though still permitting the Dutch to trade
there, continues to persecute the Christians, while that persecution
is, on the other hand, lessening in violence in China. The piracies
of the Moros endanger the islands, and allow the Dutch to hope for
alliance with them against the Spaniards; and the importance of the
islands to Spain is urged forcibly.

A letter addressed by Los Rios Coronel to the king (probably in 1620)
urges that prompt aid be sent to Filipinas for its defense against