11 following, he grants certain additional supplies to the Augustinian
convent at Manila. Later (November 4) the Council of the Indias
recommend that a grant be made to the Recollects in the islands, of
a certain amount for medicines. In a decree of September 10, the king
orders that a protector for the Chinese be appointed, who shall not be
the royal fiscal; and that any balance in the fund that they maintain
for the royal service shall be left to their disposal, or credited on
the next year's assessment. Another decree, dated November 19, recites
the oppression of the Chinese in the Parián in compelling their hair
to be cut at baptism, and levying from them an extortionate tribute;
and orders that both these vexations be abolished.

Juan Cevicos, a resident of Manila who is at the Spanish court, writes
a memorial (December 20, 1627) on "the inadvisability of a Spanish post
in the island of Hermosa." He thinks that the Dutch have established
themselves there not so much to pillage the Chinese merchant ships,
as to establish a factory on Formosa, from which they can gain the
Chinese and Japanese trade. Their success in this would result in the
destruction of Macao and ruin the Japan trade for the Philippines;
therefore they should be driven out of Formosa, and before they
have time to lure the Chinese trade also from the Spaniards. But,
even then, it is an expensive and undesirable enterprise for the
Spaniards to maintain a fort there, as the island of Formosa is of
little importance for its products, and there would be no advantage in
making it a way-station for the Chinese trade. To attempt this would
but shift thither the scene of hostilities with the Dutch, and impose
new burdens on the already overtaxed people of the Philippines. It is
useless to keep the island as a port of refuge for the Spanish ships;
there is danger that the Chinese will attack it; and even for the
conversion of the heathen the king is not under obligations to do