to act.  If they had only been able to learn from the licentiate Alcaraz, who was experienced and very prudent! but they were estranged from him, or rather they estranged themselves with their singular behavior—­so that, a long time before he died, he took an oath not to return to the Audiencia, and kept it.  And I myself, if I could, would do the same, for the reasons I have given and for many others, which make me desire to merit that your Majesty would be pleased to use me in some other way, away from this country.  To such a point has it gone, that if this country were not involved in the perils of war as it has been, and as they are still threatening it, I should beseech your Majesty to place it in charge of some other person, who would be more interested in documents.  But may God not choose that I should be relieved from the service of your Majesty, in which from the age of fifteen years I have been engaged; and I offer this so heartily that if your Majesty were pleased to send another governor who should labor somewhat, and I might aid and assist him some little time, I would do so with the greatest good-will.  It would be no little pleasure to me to be employed in naval and military affairs, and other things in which, with my counsel and my personal aid, I might be able to help; and to know that the matter of auditors and their demands, their rivalries, and their faultfinding, should concern another, and that he would have to oppose and resist those things, which would be not a little.  Nor would there be overmuch time to satisfy, quiet, and render content the many religious—­which is another labor and servitude, with which there is no way to deal; for it is without remedy, since each one wishes to be the sole distributer of goods and favors, the moderator and judge of punishments, and the governor of the governor, or else his persecutor. [In the margin:  “Not to be read in the Junta.  Join with it the letters which the auditors write against Don Alonzo Faxardo.”]

In so far as concerns the Indians, no more help can be drawn from them for the service of your Majesty, on account of what the fathers demand.  Nor can they be exempted from labors and penalties if the latter need their services, or wish to punish them; and may God will that this bring not loss some day.  For one of the ways with which the enemy best succeeds in winning over the natives is that, besides exempting them from tributes and personal services, they will not have to support religious instruction or ministers.  Although there are many good Christians, not all are so forward in this matter.  In the same manner in which I have already stated this, I can declare, and assure your Majesty, that there are in all these religious orders men of most holy and exemplary life, who have gathered a great harvest of souls, [In the margin:  “If there are several papers on this matter, let them be joined together and brought in.”]