1.  He declares that having obtained two decrees from your Majesty some years ago (while acting in this capital as procurator-general of the kingdom), with regard to the trading-ships, ordering that your governor and captain-general despatch them some time in the month of June, as the greater part of their success in the voyage consists in that, and as that country has no other fruits and harvests except that commerce, for its conservation and increase, and also for the increase of your royal treasury:  not only have they not kept the said decrees but have even done the very opposite.  Thence have followed very many great wrongs and annoyances; and that community is greatly exhausted for that reason, and your royal treasury deeply in debt. [This affects the community] not only in material possessions, but also in the loss of your vassals, many citizens and sailors having perished for that reason.  Although it is believed that your governor and captain-general, Don Alonso Faxardo, will (as is judged by his method of proceeding), correct this matter, because he has entered upon his office with so good beginnings, still, as he is mortal, and as a person may succeed him who may not attend to this—­as others of his predecessors have failed to do, as has been seen hitherto: 

He petitions your Majesty to order that this command be observed inviolate.  The most efficacious expedient would appear to be to place the governors under a heavy penalty, which they would incur whenever they did not observe it, and that it be made an important clause in their residencias.

2. Item:  That your Majesty issued a decree in the year 605, granting favor to the citizens of that community, and ordering your governors that the posts in the trading-ships be given to the deserving citizens for their profit, and that many be rewarded with this.  Inasmuch as this is very advantageous to your Majesty’s service and to the profit of trade, and inasmuch as the ex-governor always gave them to his relatives, and thus enriched them greatly, and the latter became very arrogant; and since, as this was the affair of the governor, no one dared to bring suit against them; and since this is greatly to the harm of the royal treasury, because they lade quantities of merchandise without registering it, and commit many illegal acts, and will continue always to commit them, for no one dares to speak plainly: 

He petitions your Majesty to order the observance of the said decree by ordering the officials of your royal treasury, that should the governor appoint to such offices other persons than those whom your Majesty has ordered, no account be made of it in the royal books, that no salary be granted them, and that those appointed to these offices have their residencias taken at the end of the voyage; and that, until these shall be taken, they cannot be appointed to other posts.