“If without importunity a licence can be procured for me to go on mule-back, I will try to leave for the Court after January, and I will even go without this licence.  But haste must be made that the loss of the Indies, which is now imminent, may not take place.  May our Lord have you in His keeping.

“Done to-day, December 21.

“Your father who loves you more than himself.

.S.
.S.A.S. 
XMY
Xpo FERENS.”

“This tenth which they give me is not the tenth which was promised me.  The Privileges tell what it is, and there is also due me the tenth of the profit derived from merchandise and from all other things, of which I have received nothing.  Carbajal understands me well.  Also remind Carbajal to obtain a letter from his Highness for the Governor, directing him to send his accounts and the money I have there, at once.  And it would be well that a Repostero of his Highness should go there to receive this money, as there must be a large amount due me.  I will strive to have these gentlemen of the Board of Trade send also to say to the Governor that he must send my share together with the gold belonging to their Highnesses.  But the remedy for the other matter must not be neglected there on this account.  I say that 7000 or 8000 pesos must have passed to my credit there, which sum has been received since I left, besides the other money which was not given to me.

     “To my very dear son Don Diego at the Court.”

All this struggling for the due payment of eighths and tenths makes wearisome reading, and we need not follow the Admiral into his distinctions between one kind of tenth and another.  There is something to be said on his side, it must be remembered; the man had not received what was due to him; and although he was not in actual poverty, his only property in this world consisted of these very thirds and eighths and tenths.  But if we are inclined to think poorly of the Admiral for his dismal pertinacity, what are we to think of the people who took advantage of their high position to ignore consistently the just claims made upon them?

There is no end to the Admiral’s letter-writing at this time.  Fortunately for us his letter to the Pope has been lost, or else we should have to insert it here; and we have had quite enough of his theological stupors.  As for the Queen’s will, there was no mention of the Admiral in it; and her only reference to the Indies showed that she had begun to realise some of the disasters following his rule there, for the provisions that are concerned with the New World refer exclusively to the treatment of the natives, to whose succour, long after they were past succour, the hand of Isabella was stretched out from the grave.  The licence to travel on mule-back