and maintain it;
it seems, therefore, as if no person who is free to do what he will,
and who aspires to honor and fortune, would come here to serve,
without expectation of those rewards, if he were able to do it
nearer the eye of your Majesty and of his fatherland. For if it is
true that hitherto there have been many of this kind who have come,
it has been in the hope that after three years they could leave,
entering the honored or profitable occupations which they might
have merited. The official persons with whom they came, or to whose
land they belonged, and who were friendly, or appreciative of their
abilities and qualifications, would help them, nor did it appear
that favor would be extended unjustly. All the more now, when on
every hand is barred any one of this class of persons who would
desire to come; only those come whom some misdeed or ill-fortune
drives into this land, and those who legally come to trade and live
as merchants, and those whom the royal Audiencia of Mexico sends by
way of condemnation, besides the people for our defense, and who are
levied in companies in the markets and fairs of that city. And with
these people there would come no noblemen of good parts and honored
character, or many accomplished soldiers with merits acquired in war,
such as the viceroys, governors, and other officers of this sort who
come to serve your Majesty are accustomed to bring with them--without
any suspicion that they ought not to do so, for the importance of
having such men is already known, and is all the greater on account
of the more occasions for war and other emergencies. I assure your
Majesty that it is a well-known and evident fact that there are in
this city honored knights and persons of excellent qualities, merits,
and abilities, worthy of esteem. I assure you that it is also true
that almost all of them came attached to the persons who filled
the said offices, and attracted by their promises and expectations,
whereby this country was greatly distinguished. This could not have
been said if such persons had not come here, but we would already be
very destitute of nobility without them, and would even have forgotten
the way to carry on and fulfil their duties.

That the sons and descendants of conquistadors and original settlers
should be preferred to those who are more recent and have not rendered
greater services is a just and holy thing, especially in the peaceful
countries of the Indias. But if this pr