, by divine Providence, our lord
and sovereign the Emperor has elevated me, despite any unworthiness and
inability to support it, may prove a sufficient instrument for better
fulfilling my old desires to do the will of God, of which God has deigned
to make use in those countries. It is His will that His Holy Faith should
be preached and that the beings he has created and redeemed should know
Him and that His predestined ones should be saved and His Majesty and Your
Highness receive great services. Concerning the two hundred and fifty
ducats which Your Highness granted me, the officials of this house have
not yet obtained them, but I hope they will seek them and supply them in
the end, though it may be with difficulty, because everybody is aware that
His Majesty has no money in this house and that so many demands daily
arise that there is not a man who will lend a maravedi to His Majesty. In
truth, this is very injurious to His Majesty's service and to the
greatness of his imperial State, because, according as his enemies learn
that this house is rich or is in want of money--so will they either fear
him or presume to cause him annoyances. In order that this house should
always enjoy confidence to guarantee the above mentioned, it seems that
Your Highness ought to command that, just as they keep account of what is
spent in keeping an army and in feeding those who are actually in
attendance, night and day, on the royal and imperial person of His Majesty
and on Your Highness, so also should it be provided that when this house
has a surplus of twenty or thirty thousand ducats, it should be reported
to have one or two hundred thousand. Such sums should never, on account
of any other necessity, be lacking here, for they would be useful for many
things and by the credit they would give, the greatest wants could be met.
I shall report, as Your Highness ordered, the number and names of the
friars now sailing, as soon as we are all united, God willing, at San
Lucar.

Up to now I think we have forty-three. I am in hopes of more going from
this province, from which we have seven or eight. But all those who are
going, do not want to separate from those who come from Castile or to go
to any other part of the Indies except where the latter do: the men from
here are very virtuous and religious people. The number I have said we
have here would have been greater, had not some six or eight of those whom
we brought from Castile staye