enforced those forts with the supplies that he took in his charge,
in consideration of which your Majesty confirmed him in an encomienda,
without debarring him therefrom because he was a brother-in-law of
the fiscal. That relationship, however, no longer exists, because
there is another fiscal, a man young in years and of little judgment,
without services, merits, or any other qualifications to support his
claims, not even for the office of government notary, which an uncle of
his resigned. This man has tried to oppose my choice; he has had the
audacity to demand the place, trying to disqualify the appointee with
a suit brought by my predecessor, from which the royal Audiencia freed
and acquitted him. Although I am certain that he [Esteban de Alcazar]
is one of the most deserving of those who might be employed in this,
I have chosen to send a sworn testimony in the form of a report
(in duplicate), so that your Majesty, if such be your pleasure,
may order it to be examined. Although any one might resent having
to furnish an exoneration when there is no cause for the accusation,
there is much more to resent here in the accusations which some are
wont to write without any justification, and without the matter being
known; for, by reason of the long time that must elapse before one
comes to have notice of it and the truth of the matter is made known,
he has already suffered much in darkness from an evil and unauthentic
relation, and this is the truth.

According to the news received here of what has come in the said
ships, the aid in silver and reals that has come on your Majesty's
account amounts to three hundred and fifty-two thousand pesos; while
the supplies that I asked both this year and last come to less than
one-third of the amount that was generally brought in several former
years--for I am very careful not to exceed what is actually necessary
and unavoidable, in order to save the so excessive expenses which were
generally incurred in this; since other expenses are not wanting that
render that saving very necessary.

The infantry does not amount to two hundred men, in three companies. If
these men were that number, and Spaniards, it would not be so bad; but,
although I have not seen them, because they have not yet arrived here,
I am told that they are, as at other times, for the most part boys,
mestizos, and mulattoes, with some Indians. There is no little cause
for regret in the great sums that reenforcements of