They petition it from your Majesty, and I do the same, with the desire that I have and ought to have for you royal service and the welfare of this country.  I find myself daily under new obligations to this country, which the inhabitants lay upon me by the willingness with which they respond to the service of your Majesty with their possessions, persons, and lives, as I have experienced from many on the occasions that have arisen.  According to the limit of my understanding, and that which I have been able to grasp with it in this particular, I regard the aforesaid as so important to your Majesty’s service that, considering the matter in case that it should be necessary for the ships to go together, I would regard it as more advisable for both to go to Panama rather than to Acapulco—­although I think that the said division is better, and the advantage of the reenforcement of men, and that which that country [i.e., Nueva Espana] can give easily; for thus results service to your Majesty and good to this country, and apparently not a little benefit to the commerce of Espana.  For the products and merchandise of Espana that are esteemed here would be bought and imported in a much greater quantity with the saving of the freight charges overland, which are so excessive from Vera Cruz to Acapulco.  The cost of those articles is also increased by the profit of the merchants who buy and retail them in that country [i.e., Nueva Espana].  If the merchandise were relieved from so high prices as it reaches to in this manner, and if the goods can be so easily passed on from owner to purchaser without resale, the shipment here of a great amount of the said merchandise and products, and of money less that quantity, is certain.

Likewise, in addition to the above, if the enemy should station themselves on that coast [i.e., of Nueva Espana], to await the ships that sail to Acapulco (as they have already done at other times), where they have captured some of those that have sailed hence, not only are there not ships at hand ready to go out to fight with them and to prevent them from making such attempts, but not one patache in which to send advice of it out to sea; while in Panama and on its coast that danger would be more easily averted because there are plenty of ships and seamen there.  Will your Majesty be pleased to have this matter examined and considered so that, after understanding the pros and cons, what is most advisable to your service may be done.

[Marginal note:  “Note of what was decreed, on a separate paper.” [23]]

5th.  We are very happy at the good news that has arrived here of the favor that your Majesty concedes, to all of us who live in this country, of sending us reenforcements of soldiers and ships by the Cape of Buena Esperanza; and I more happy than I could express, because of my great desire for it and my great regret over its lack, in order to demonstrate effectively the desire that I have always had, and have, of employing