The case has been concluded and considered, and the
decision has not been reached; of that I shall later send a report
to your Majesty.

For these reasons your governor is inciting the soldiers and telling
them that I am depriving them of means of sustenance, and various
other things, in order to set them against me, and make himself
popular with them, while disparaging me. Consequently, some of them
bear me ill-will. Your said governor, although he knows that he cannot
take Indians from your royal crown, has assigned some of them three
or four times; and I have had them taken away by process of law. He
satisfied himself by telling the soldiers that he had given them a
means of support, but that I had taken it away. As I took exception
to his acts, and caused several encomiendas to be revoked which
had been given by him, he says that he is not the governor, but I
am. I beseech your Majesty to be pleased to command your governor to
refrain from such indignities to me, as the diligence which I exercise
and the actions at law which I cause are for your royal service, the
increase of the royal exchequer, and the fulfilment of my conscience
and obligation. As I am hated in this country for doing my duty,
would your Majesty be pleased to favor me by granting me leave to
depart, and giving me a charge elsewhere where I may serve better and
more satisfactorily, and where no one will complain of me. When your
Majesty receives this, I shall have served in this office of fiscal
almost seven years. Should your Majesty not be disposed to grant me
this favor I shall continue in my service here until I die.

Still later, at the death of Dona Maria de Miranda, two encomiendas
were left vacant, both worth a thousand pesos of income. They were
given to Don Fernando de Villafana, by virtue of your royal decree,
in which it is commanded that your governor should give him an
encomienda of Indians. He has served in these islands about ten years,
and for his good service and poverty but little has been given him. On
this account, and as your Majesty had commanded that he be given an
encomienda of Indians, I took no exception, as in the other cases.

This year there came from China eleven or twelve vessels with but
little merchandise, because, as they say, there have been many wars
and a severe plague. It has been reported that a ship from Panama
or Piru, prepared to lay out a large sum of money, has arrived at
Macan, which is on the river