Therefore, little by little, this knowledge was fading away among the Spaniards, notwithstanding that the religious who ministered in the neighboring provinces were well informed, and certain Indians told them of it.

Accordingly, considering the host of vexations, injuries, and losses, and the diminution of numbers that are suffered by the Indians in all the Western Indias on account of the labor in the mines, the Order of St.Dominic especially, who administer the province of Pangasinan, have tried with all their might to cover up this information, on account of this fear which possesses them.
Many years ago I learned something of this, but I sided with the others who gave little credit to it, owing to the little knowledge that we had.

But as time is a great discloser of secrets, while I was discussing with some religious the difficulties of the future which the kings of Espana, the successors of your Majesty, must meet in maintaining this country if there were in the country itself no wealth or sources of profit which would oblige them to do so, I succeeded in securing a great deal of information concerning the wealth which is there.

Particularly, he who is now archbishop [49] told me that a religious of St.Dominic--the vicar of a village named Vinalatonga, who was named Fray Jasinto Palao, and who at that time had come from Luzon to this kingdom [_i.e._, Espana]--had shown him some rocks which an Indian had brought him from a mine, and which appeared extraordinarily rich, beyond anything that had been seen.

But he enjoined the bishop to secrecy, because he himself had heard it in the same manner.