d behind. I think that some were afraid and
others were detained by reasonable obstacles: the latter, we hope will
follow us when the causes are removed. I beg Your Highness to order the
Provincial, who is now appointed to this province and who was formerly
Prior of San Pablo in Valladolid, a true servant of God, and very zealous
for God's honour and for the salvation of the Indians, to be induced to
continually send monks to those parts, as I firmly believe he will amply
comply.

This house of San Pablo in Seville being very necessary for the religious
Your Highness will be sending to the Indies, and having great expenses on
account of the poverty and want of this city, where everything costs a
third more than in Valladolid--which is frightful--I humbly beseech Your
Highness always to remember it by gifts and by such alms as it may be
possible to bestow on it: especially out of the funds of the dead. For I
hold it to be as necessary to give alms to the house, and just as
beneficial to the souls of the dead--to whom the fund belongs--as it is to
give for the maintenance of the friars who go to preach the gospel in
those parts where the deceased unrighteously amassed the riches they left
behind them. Your Highness may believe that the protection and good
treatment shown here to the friars, tend to dispel their fears of the
labours which friars in the Indies usually sustain. Without such
encouragement everything would be just the contrary, and some would be
frightened and discouraged, as has heretofore happened. Certainly, up to
the present, great have been the care and comfort that our companions,
servants of God, have received here from the provincial and the prior.
Twenty or twenty-two have been given shelter here. I therefore beg Your
Highness to bear this in mind, should there be an occasion in the future
to grant them any favour or alms. In this city and throughout Andalusia
there is a large number of Indians held unjustly as slaves; and when the
licentiate Gregorio Lopez was here by order of His Majesty, they kept many
Indians imprisoned after the order was given for their release, some being
hidden and others taken into the country and elsewhere. I have even been
told by a man who knows--to clear his conscience--that there was a great
deal of bribery and corruption among wicked people, who used three or four
or ten ducats to outrage God, stealing the liberty of the Indians and thus
leaving many in perpetua