serve you. And thus with new courage I pray God that He may give me
life and better health in order to serve you. I have for a year back
been in so poor health, by reason of great exhaustion and weakness,
that I greatly fear that I shall not be able to leave this place. If I
shall not do that, I shall have fulfilled my duty by giving my life
in the service of your Majesty. Your Majesty knows that I am not
fit for the burden of government since the death of Dona Magdalena,
who is in heaven. Everything has been hardship for me; and I have
become so exhausted that I can scarce rise from my bed, and I have
been very near my end twice or thrice. May God fulfil His will,
and may your Majesty be pleased to give orders that I be relieved,
if you wish affairs to be safe here; for surely the country will be
very quickly in the power of the auditors, if some person does not
come from there who will not let it be lost. If God give me life,
I shall be contented even with retiring to the post with which your
Majesty has favored me, as your commissary of war. Notwithstanding
that I assure your Majesty as your faithful vassal, and as a person
who would prefer to lose a thousand lives than to utter one falsehood
to his king, that the Filipinas have been worth nothing to me, during
the six years of my residence herein; but rather I have lost the twenty
thousand pesos which I have spent from the dowry that Dona Magdalena
brought me. And had not our Lord been pleased to give me a son (at
whose birth she died), she would not have had enough whereby to have
returned safely home to her parents. I confess that it must seem to
politicians that one does not come so far not to gain a bit of bread;
but it is certain that if one is to serve your Majesty to the letter,
and live as a Christian, it is difficult to acquire much property. I
arrived at these islands very deeply pledged, for the expenses of
the Indias are heavy. I brought many men, so that they might serve
your Majesty here. I have carried myself in accordance with the honor
which your Majesty bestowed upon me; and, consequently, I have not
been able to save enough from my salary to pay the expenses of the
return (if God grants me life). I am anxious; for it is not right to
spend the possessions of this child. If some accommodation, in some
of the ways that my agents will represent there, were to be allowed
me for this purpose, I would appreciate it; for that would enable me
to take from h