Majesty holds in them. It is well that Your Highness should know that I could not do otherwise for I began to spend these monies only after I had nothing left of my own to spend, and when I even owed more than thirty thousand pesos of gold which I had borrowed. As there was nothing else to be done, and as I could not otherwise meet the necessary demands of the royal service of Your Highness, I was forced to spend these sums; and I do not believe that the result obtained, and to be obtained, is very small, for it certainly pays a profit of one thousand per cent. Although Your Majesty's officials are satisfied that the amounts have been spent in your service, they will not enter them in the account, for they say they have no power to do this. I beseech Your Majesty to order that it be shown they were properly spent, and admit them in the account, and also to command fifty odd thousand pesos of gold which I have spent out of my own fortune or have borrowed from my friends to be repaid me for if this is not returned to me I shall be unable to repay those who loaned me them, and will find myself in great want. I do not think that Your Catholic Majesty will permit this, but rather order that they be paid me, and will grant me many and greater favours in addition, because, Your Highness being so Catholic and so Christian a Prince, my own services are not without merit, to which the fruits they have produced bear testimony.
I have learned from these officials, and from other persons who came with them, as well as by letters from
Fate of the
Treasure
Spain, that the articles I sent Your Caesarian Majesty by Antonio de Quinones and Alonzo de Avila, my procurators in New Spain, did not reach Your Royal presence having been captured by the French[1]
- ↑ This treasure never reached its destination. Alonzo de Avila and Antonio de Quiñones, the two officers charged to carry the gifts and letters to the Emperor, first stopped at the island of Santa Maria,
