Indies, I was prepared to give them a sum of gold incomparable to forty thousand pesos.  I make oath, and this may be for thee alone, that the damage to me in the matter of the concessions their Highnesses have made to me, amounts to ten millions each year, and never can be made good.  You see what will be, or is, the injury to their Highnesses in what belongs to them, and they do not perceive it.  I write at their disposal and will strive to start yonder.  My arrival and the rest is in the hands of our Lord.  His mercy is infinite.  What is done and is to be done, St. Augustine says is already done before the creation of the world.  I write also to these other Lords named in the letter of Diego Mendez.  Commend me to their mercy and tell them of my going as I have said above.  For certainly I feel great fear, as the cold is so inimical to this, my infirmity, that I may have to remain on the road.

“I was very much pleased to hear the contents of your letter and what the King our Lord said, for which you kissed his royal hands.  It is certain that I have served their Highnesses with as much diligence and love as though it had been to gain Paradise, and more, and if I have been at fault in anything it has been because it was impossible or because my knowledge and strength were not sufficient.  God, our Lord, in such a case, does not require more from persons than the will.

“At the request of the Treasurer Morales, I left two brothers in the Indies, who are called Porras.  The one was captain and the other auditor.  Both were without capacity for these positions:  and I was confident that they could fill them, because of love for the person who sent them to me.  They both became more vain than they had been.  I forgave them many incivilities, more than I would do with a relation, and their offences were such that they merited another punishment than a verbal reprimand.  Finally they reached such a point that even had I desired, I could not have avoided doing what I did.  The records of the case will prove whether I lie or not.  They rebelled on the island of Jamaica, at which I was as much astonished as I would be if the sun’s rays should cast darkness.  I was at the point of death, and they martyrised me with extreme cruelty during five months and without cause.  Finally I took them all prisoners, and immediately set them free, except the captain, whom I was bringing as a prisoner to their Highnesses.  A petition which they made to me under oath, and which I send you with this letter, will inform you at length in regard to this matter, although the records of the case explain it fully.  These records and the Notary are coming on another vessel, which I am expecting from day to day.  The Governor in Santo Domingo took this prisoner.—­His courtesy constrained him to do this.  I had a chapter in my instructions in which their Highnesses ordered all to obey me, and that I should exercise civil and criminal justice over all those