y that amount.

_The requirement that the Council shall approve the religious who
are to go is severe and useless._ After all this, the requirement
of making the voyage under the very severe rule that the Council
shall approve the friars who are to go to the Indias brings the whole
undertaking within obvious risk of failure. If the list of names of
the religious who are going must be certain and accurate, it cannot
be sent to the Council before they are all assembled in Sevilla;
for up to that point it is very uncertain who are to go. Even then it
still remains uncertain, for many come back from Sevilla. The ordinary
state of affairs is that all are gathered there a few days only before
the departure of the fleet, for, if they go much sooner, there is no
means for their support; for his Majesty gives commands to provide
a real and a half daily for every religious, while the contribution
demanded from the convent is three reals a day for each one. Now,
if the list of names of the religious cannot be sent to Valladolid
earlier, even if it should be approved there at the very moment--and
usually business there is despatched quite otherwise--it is necessary
that the approval shall come back from Valladolid immediately, or
else the fleet will have departed, or be on the point of going. In the
meantime the religious are in suspense, without knowing whether they
are to make the voyage or no; for in the House of Trade at Sevilla they
either refuse to give them the grant necessary for their support until
the approval of the Council arrives, or, if they grant it in advance,
they require a bond which the poor commissary does not know where to
find--and which even if he could find it would be unwise for him to
give, since he has no means by which to satisfy it in case the Council
decree some other thing than what he expects. If, on the other hand,
the House of Trade allows the grant after the appropriation arrives,
the time is so short that it is impossible to provide the supplies for
the voyage, except very poorly and in great haste, and at a very high
price, since one must purchase without time for examination. Besides
this, the religious are greatly hurt to find themselves subjected to
an examination at the hands of the Council with regard to their life,
their habits, and their family, just as if to permit them to go to the
Indias were as much as to appoint them to bishoprics; this has greatly
cooled their ardor. If the commissa