not courage to
embark; while those who overcome this difficulty and do go aboard,
being new to the sea and seeing themselves in so narrow a space as
is that of one ship, and being very seasick--indeed, there are many
who during the whole voyage cannot raise their heads--are delighted
to find themselves on shore alive. Then having set foot on the land
of Nueva Espana, from which they understand that they are obliged
to pass anew through all that they have already suffered, and over a
much larger ocean, they are put to the test by the climate; some die,
and others find themselves attacked by a thousand sicknesses. They
get there no better report about the country to which they are
going than they had in Espana--indeed a much worse one, as it is
received from eye-witnesses, both laymen and friars; and they dare
not go on farther. All these difficulties have to be conquered by
the commissary who conducts them, by means of his prudence, of which
he needs a goodly supply. He is obliged to conduct them with love,
for the religious are not of a character to be treated with rigor
and violence, especially in a matter contrary to flesh and blood,
when they exile themselves to those distant countries, so hot and
so sterile, leaving their own land, which perhaps they can never
forget. Hence, if they were to be treated with violence the result
which your Majesty desires would not follow, that is, the service of
God and of your Majesty's self in the conversion of souls. Not only
would they, if thus treated, destroy more than they would build up,
but they would serve only to disquiet those who were there occupied in
the building up of that great church. These difficulties themselves are
not so small; but it is reasonable to add the other and greater ones,
such as are those of sending the religious away, and those which are
stated in the following paragraphs.

_What occurs at Valladolid in despatching this business._ The first
of the difficulties is in the first steps taken to bring the journey
before the Council at the court. These steps are many; and anyone who
goes thither without money--and those who come from the Philippinas to
treat for this matter generally have no money--will find it necessary
to take a great many more steps, since the officials regard that
time as lost which they spend upon despatching the business of a
man who offers them no advantages. Accordingly, it is not possible
to obtain documents from them except by d