ot dictate them or draw them up, but entrusted them to two
clerks before his visit--for his poor health did not permit him to
do more. It is not to be believed that a well-informed lawyer would
try to obstruct the service of your Majesty, for nearly all his
ordinances are directed to and reflect distrust of the fidelity of
the royal officials, to whom your Majesty has hitherto entrusted your
revenues. From the good disposition that I observe in them and the work
that they do, I judge them to be your very good and faithful servants.

It is advisable that your Majesty be pleased to send an accountant
for settling accounts, and that he be a person of authority,
with adequate pay. He who serves in that office in the meanwhile
was formerly the servant of one of these auditors; and he is more
concerned in occupying his time in sustaining friendships than in
attending to what is necessary. On that account if some of the new
ordinances were to be remade, this would be bettered.

I received some decrees in these last ships, which were despatched in
the year thirty-two, and others of the year thirty-three, concerning
the treasury, which are obeyed and will be carried out as is therein
contained. When these ships set sail--and that has not been done
before as the decrees were received late, and by way of India--I
shall give an account of the condition of these matters.

The viceroy of Nueva Espana has sent me four companies as a
reenforcement, and this camp has six others. I have reorganized five,
so that there are now six companies in this city, each with more
than one hundred soldiers, which is the least number that a company
generally has.

Since the month of August of last year, when I began to govern these
islands, the half-annats [103] have been collected with the care
ordered by your Majesty, in which I cooeperated with the commissary
for that tax. The royal officials and the auditor who was appointed
commissary are doing as they should.

In the ships of last year, and by way of Yndia, I informed your
Majesty how expedient it was to charge five per cent duty on the
silver and reals that are sent annually from Nueva Espana, as no
remedy has been found whereby that commerce can be adjusted to the
permission of only five hundred thousand pesos, which your Majesty
has conceded to these islands. Past times can ill be compared with
the present; and granting the accidents which oblige the viceroys of
Nueva Espana not to prac