hrough Father Fray Pedro. Although two
vessels arrived here from Xapon, they could not give me the desired
news. The arrival of Pedro Goncalez has pleased me greatly, especially
in view of the fact that I was unable to understand his delay, and
of the rumor here that your Grandeur was going to send your armies,
a report very different from the agreement made in your name with
my father by your ambassador and servant Faranda, which was for firm
peace and full amity. Through the letter brought by Pedro Goncalez,
I have learned that it is your royal desire that such relations be
continued; and this has greatly pleased me, for it is to be hoped
that as the kings are great, great will be the friendship, and greater
still the fruits of it. Equally great is my desire that hereafter we
treat each other in every way like friends, with less formality and
more frankness than in your royal letters hitherto received; because
to say that the sun at your royal birth promised you the whole world
and its sovereignty, I believe can only be the saying of someone
who wishes to please and flatter you with such a prophecy--which
is in no wise possible or practicable, for many reasons. The first
is that the very power which according to your Grandeur's statement
is to give you that dominion is unable to do it, since the sun is,
just like the sky, the earth and everything else created, the work
of our true God and therefore it can neither promise nor fulfil such
a promise. The sun has no more life or power than what God gave it,
and this does not go to the extent of taking or giving away kingdoms,
which can only be done by God himself. It is to this great God and
Lord that thanks are due for all our life and power; and it is He who
has such power, and not the sun or anything else which, as already
stated, is an object created by Him. From the above-stated truth it
must be inferred that it was flattery and nothing practicable that
those learned men said. In this prophecy they have shown themselves
to be in the wrong; because, even if no other obstacles were to be
encountered, it would be impossible to fulfil the prophecy when it is
considered what a long time it would require to do so, and how short
our life is, especially so when the greater part of it is past. After
this obstacle a greater one arises, and that is that, even if so many
and powerful kings as the world holds were to be subjugated, my king
would suffice to overthrow all these prop