is a most grave offense, worthy of all punishment and chastisement.  Such persons may properly be called destroyers of their countries, because, in not giving information in accordance with the principles of truth, they fail to remedy the evils and provide the good which is necessary for the preservation of the land.  As this commonwealth is so far away from your Majesty, it has to be governed, not by what your Majesty sees and knows, but by the information received by him regarding it.  This must be according to the good or bad intention of the informer.  Consequently, this commonwealth is subjected to many hardships and misfortunes, by the fault not of your Majesty—­with whose most holy zeal and desire for the welfare of this land we are well acquainted—­but of us here who send information.  There are but few of us who, oblivious of our own interests and pretensions, now fix our eyes on the common good alone, and seek only this; but the most of us seek only our own interests, our informations and reports are shaped by these, as appears by the increase of the tributes which your Majesty commands to be made.  As this is discussed, however, in another letter, I will go to no greater length than to say that, if your Majesty were present here, no orders would be given to increase the tributes of these miserable people, but rather they would pay less.  But he who informed your Majesty that more tribute can be paid has already accounted or will account to God also.  I am affected in part by these hardships and dangers, as it is now two years since your Majesty wrote me a reprimand, as if I were the man to blame for the dissensions of the Audiencia.  God knows, as do all in this community, that if I had not made peace, the dissensions between the president and auditors would have lasted until today.  The same I say of the five decrees which I received this year.  Among them are several which show that he who informed your Majesty did so in an account entirely malicious and totally contrary to the truth.  Others show that, although the informer told something of the truth, he did so in an entirely different manner from the way in which things happened, concealing what he ought to say, and affirming what he should not.  This will appear by my reply to each decree—­not as an excuse for myself, as I consider myself to be very rightly judged elsewhere; but in order to satisfy your Majesty, as I shall proceed to relate.

Beginning with the first decree, which treats of the confessions of the conquerors, they being constrained to make restitution in solidum, I say that I have never done anything in this bishopric which leaves me so vexed and conscience-stricken, as that I dealt so mildly with those who came to this country nominally as conquerors, but actually as destroyers.  According to the true and sound doctrine of St. Thomas, and of all right-feeling men, they are all bound to pay in solidum for the damage which they have done.  I, with more than necessary boldness, have