and entrusts them to a trustworthy and qualified person
who signs them. For if this had to be given to the charge of the
government notary, although from the division of the two reals he
would get only the third, which would amount to five hundred pesos,
besides another four hundred that he demands annually from the royal
treasury, by arguments that moved them at a meeting of the treasury
to concede them to him--but which I abrogated because it did not seem
proper, as I have advised your Majesty before now, from which has
resulted that anger of his--the whole would amount to nine hundred
pesos of sure income, which means a principal of eighteen thousand
pesos, although it only cost seventeen thousand, for which your
Majesty sold the office to him. The office yielded [_MS. holed_:
last?] year, without counting these nine hundred pesos, more than
two thousand five hundred. In other matters pertaining to this,
I refer to the report that, as above stated, in enclosed herewith.

[_Marginal note_: "It is well. Have the fiscal examine this
section." _In another hand_: "It was taken to the fiscal."]

40th. I had already made a beginning in what your Majesty orders to
be done in the opening and working of gold mines, as I was desirous
of obtaining such an order by authority, with excellent news. What I
can impart of it is the news written me by Captain Garcia de Aldana,
to whom I entrusted it. [31] Consequently, I am sending his letter
and a copy with this, and his duplicate, in which he adds that they
have greater hopes than those that we promised ourselves from the
mines, since we had to continue the entrance into those provinces,
and endeavor to enjoy the fruits of our labor, with the pacification
and reduction of so many people to the service of your Majesty,
and their souls to the service of God (which is the thing of
chief importance). If all cannot be obtained at once, it is well
to have already made a beginning, and that it shall continue to
advance. Touching the gold, it cannot be little, since those Indians
who are called Ygolotes do not extract more than what they need
for trade and barter--for cattle, salt, and iron--with our peaceful
Indians with whom they trade. One year ago, from that province alone,
according to the report here, the latter brought for sale to this
city about twenty thousand taes, each of which is equivalent to
a peso of ten reals. When we secure efficient management of these
mines and the dutie