This is because there is no one to take the money, for it yields but seven reals a month, which can do no more than buy food for one day.  The provisions in this land are as dear as those in Castilla.  If your Majesty were pleased to have these thousand pesos and another thousand—­which can be obtained from charges laid upon the vacant encomiendas—­divided by the governor among twenty or thirty unemployed captains and deserving soldiers, they would then be enabled to buy food; and many very great excesses committed by them in trying to obtain food among the Indians would be avoided.  As these are caused by their extreme necessity, they are to a certain extent excusable, for no one is willing to be left to die of starvation.  This point is worthy of much consideration.  I entreat your Majesty to have the goodness to examine it and provide what is most needful.

Although by right of my office I can proceed to punish the captains and soldiers of the land, and do so, there are, mingled with the good men, so many who are vile and vicious that the majority of the men are constantly informing on one another.  This vice, as well as that of writing defamatory libels and letters, is very prevalent.  This is a state of affairs very unfortunate for this land, and one by which our lord is very ill served; and great and serious misfortunes follow.  If your Majesty were pleased to charge each of the auditors here, in turn, privately to investigate these cases and give the offenders exemplary punishment, a great part of the present difficulty might be remedied.  I assure your Majesty, that one of the things which make me most dissatisfied and anxious to leave the country, is the matter above stated.  Therefore I have petitioned your Majesty to grant me favor and license for it, as I hope for it from your royal clemency.  Many times I have considered and been brought face to face with the great evil that is done in this land by the marriage of elderly widows with whomsoever they may choose.  They are old and but ordinary women, as they were those who first came here.  Their husbands pacified the best encomiendas, and died; and these widows are left with five or six thousand pesos of income.  They marry and have married despicably and irregularly, and old soldiers, honorable gentlemen, and noblemen have been defrauded, who by their descent would have inherited and succeeded to these encomiendas.  I have thought of a plan suitable to correct this evil, about which I have conferred with grave religious persons—­namely, that the childless widow who shall marry after the age of forty years shall hold but a life-interest in the encomienda.  Will your Majesty have this considered and provide accordingly, considering the extreme importance of it.