ade to
reenforce and protect those islands and your government with the
forces possible. But as these are limited, and consumed in so many
diverse occasions and armies in Germany, Flandes, and Ytalia, and
other places, it is highly advisable, as has been written you, to be
careful in your expenses and in the accuracy of their account. It is
also desirable that you endeavor to work the mines of the country,
and to carry on a factory and the trade of cloves and drugs as much
as is possible, so that you may sustain yourselves and may not prove
so expensive, as has been represented to you in preceding clauses."]

28th. I shall also endeavor to tell your Majesty what I shall ascertain
and hear about the duties on the cloves of Terrenate and the factory,
taking for that the depositions of the Audiencia and of the royal
officials--which I shall not do now, for want of time. In the opinion
that I asked from them some days ago in regard to sending [a vessel] to
trade for cloves on your Majesty's account with goods and money that I
had for that purpose, Don Alvaro opposed me so strongly in everything,
that one would think that he considers that the risks are mine and
that it is done on my account (as if the gains were mine), rather
than for your Majesty's service. However, I sent the goods necessary
for this trading, because of the gain that results from it and its
investment to the royal revenues and the provisions brought from India.

[_Marginal note_: "Council. You have already been answered as to
this."]

29th. If it is true, as has been said in regard to these despatches of
ships from Terrenate, India, and Nueva Espana, that the relatives and
followers of him who made and managed them have profited, now, thanks
to God, things are run more openly and honestly, at least in so far as
I have authority, and in matters that I can prevent or remedy. That I
do, in such manner that well do my condition and that of my servants
attest it; for the latter live on the rations and clothes that I
give them now, and they will do so until they be entitled to more as
citizens, and not by serving me, or by other merits. Consequently,
I can affirm that the offices that my predecessors have given to the
citizens, in fulfilment of your Majesty's orders, I have granted in
the same manner; and have even given them others to which they had
no right, either by custom or royal decree.

[_Marginal note_: "It is well, and I trust that you will govern