21. Item:  That your Majesty be pleased to order your governor to be careful, in the muster-roll of sailors and common seamen made out by the royal officials, that all such be efficient; for it happens that a ship may take sixty sailors, thirty of whom are men who have been named as sailors without any knowledge of their duties, but only by favor.  Then in times of need there are not any to work, and the few who do understand it cannot attend to the work, which should be divided among so many.  Consequently there is signal danger, because the voyage is so long and difficult.

22. Item:  That it be ordered that the common seamen who serve in the said ships, who are always Indian natives, be all men of that coast, who are instructed how to navigate; and that they be made to wear clothes, with which to shelter themselves from the cold; for, because they do not, most of them die in high latitudes, of which he [the writer] is a witness.  Inasmuch as the factor enrolls other Indians who live in the interior, and who do not know the art of sailing, and as they are a wretched people, they are embarked without clothes to protect them against the cold, so that when each new dawn comes there are three or four dead men (a matter that is breaking his heart); besides, they are treated inhumanly and are not given the necessaries of life, but are killed with hunger and thirst.  If he were to tell in detail the evil that is done to them, it would fill many pages.  He petitions your Majesty to charge your governor straitly to remedy this.

Item:  That inasmuch as the kitchens where the food is cooked are not located in the first part of the forecastle, as is seen in [ships on] these seas, but in the waist; and inasmuch as at the first storm the sea carries them away, after which each one cooks his food in his messroom where he can make a fire (and it is a miracle from God that the ships are not burned)—­he petitions your Majesty to order your governor to remedy that, since he is so excellent a sailor.  The reason for that abuse is that the officials appropriate the largest storerooms of the ships.

23. Item:  That slave women be not conveyed in the ships, by which many acts offensive to God will be avoided.  Although that is prohibited by your royal decree, and it is also entrusted to the archbishop to place upon them the penalty of excommunication and to punish them, this evil has not been checked; and many sailors—­and even others, who should furnish a good example—­take slave women and keep them as concubines.  He knew a certain prominent official who carried with him fifteen of these women; and some were delivered of children by him, while others were pregnant, which made a great scandal.