The third is on account of the troops that are there consumed.

The fourth is that since your Majesty is in such straits it is expedient to attend first to the relief most necessary, which is that of affairs here; and since you cannot attend to all, it is compulsory to abandon that country.

Finally, your Majesty's dominions are widely separated, and cannot be preserved except by withdrawing from those which are least necessary, for power united is the stronger.

Or it is argued that, even though it be expedient to maintain the Filipinas, the commerce should be changed from Nueva Espana to these kingdoms, and ships should be sent from the city of Sevilla to the Filipinas, as is done from Portugal to eastern India; and that for this trade the ships should be laden with merchandise from this country [_i.e._, Espana], and in exchange for that should bring back the wealth of Great China and those regions.
In answer to the first, your Majesty expends much in the preservation of that country, it is true; but the objectors do not consider that those expenditures which are made are not for the purpose of preserving the Filipinas--at least since Don Pedro de Acuna, your governor, won the islands of Maluco, where cloves are obtained; for since that time the expense has been to maintain the war against the Dutch, who have been fortifying and making themselves masters there, and because we did not understand here, in the beginning and later, how important it would be to spend what was necessary to drive them out once for all, and to secure those regions.

This has been the cause of spending so much in reenforcements, which have not served, and do not serve, more than to keep the forts which your Majesty holds in the islands of Terrenate and Tidore, and the friendship of the king of Tidore; and this is the cause of the expenses which your Majesty makes in the Filipinas, while the Dutch are taking away almost all the profits--although it is true that, if your Majesty had had ministers there zealous in your service, you might have obtained profit enough to maintain those forts without drawing upon your royal exchequer.