u information of all this,
in order that if any reparation be proposed there, it may be in this;
for I judge that the points and articles of this residencia will
cause the utmost embarrassment in the Council, and that it will be
necessary to command that it be taken again. I give thanks to our Lord
that it has not reached me; for it would cause me the utmost injury
and perplexity--partly on account of his wrong acts, partly because
those who had written unpleasant letters to the Council now turn tail,
and explain nothing. This, it may be, is attributed to the judge, who
is not to blame--for here there are only false witnesses, now on one
side and now on the other; and you will confirm this information by
what goes there, which you will not fail to know. For it seems to me
that in all the lands discovered [by Spaniards] there is no country
like this, or where its inhabitants are so inconstant. Accordingly,
I assert that here neither friendship nor enmity is permanent;
for if now, for example, some persons are my enemies, and on that
account my actions are pointed out in the Council, when [the news
of] my vindication--through this or that accident--comes from there
we become reconciled, and eat, as they say, from one plate; and the
same on the other side. It is useless, therefore, to take notice of
anything in this little edition of hell [abreviado infierno].

I have no other request or greater desire than to leave this place; and
although (for since I arrived in these islands I have written to you
at every opportunity) I have sufficiently wearied you regarding this,
I cannot cease continuing [my efforts to go away]--without urging any
fixed and assigned place, or where or how it shall be accomplished. For
every day, Don Diego, I find myself more disconsolate, and I would by
this time be desperate if I could not trust in the good opinion that
I have of you; and therefore, hoping for your protection and stationed
at your feet, I entreat you with the utmost earnestness [for a change
in my position], without heeding whether or not it be a promotion. For
me the best promotion will be to go away, wherever it may be; and if
it cannot be accomplished in this way, [please] endeavor to secure
for me permission, for such time as may seem proper to the Council,
to pass over to Nueva Espana, in accordance with what I wrote last
year, as there was no room for either of these expedients to secure
my departure. I send a special power of