the Audiencia, and kept it. And I myself, if I could, would do the
same, for the reasons I have given and for many others, which make me
desire to merit that your Majesty would be pleased to use me in some
other way, away from this country. To such a point has it gone, that
if this country were not involved in the perils of war as it has been,
and as they are still threatening it, I should beseech your Majesty to
place it in charge of some other person, who would be more interested
in documents. But may God not choose that I should be relieved from
the service of your Majesty, in which from the age of fifteen years I
have been engaged; and I offer this so heartily that if your Majesty
were pleased to send another governor who should labor somewhat,
and I might aid and assist him some little time, I would do so with
the greatest good-will. It would be no little pleasure to me to be
employed in naval and military affairs, and other things in which,
with my counsel and my personal aid, I might be able to help; and to
know that the matter of auditors and their demands, their rivalries,
and their faultfinding, should concern another, and that he would have
to oppose and resist those things, which would be not a little. Nor
would there be overmuch time to satisfy, quiet, and render content the
many religious--which is another labor and servitude, with which there
is no way to deal; for it is without remedy, since each one wishes
to be the sole distributer of goods and favors, the moderator and
judge of punishments, and the governor of the governor, or else his
persecutor. [_In the margin_: "Not to be read in the Junta. Join with
it the letters which the auditors write against Don Alonzo Faxardo."]

In so far as concerns the Indians, no more help can be drawn from
them for the service of your Majesty, on account of what the fathers
demand. Nor can they be exempted from labors and penalties if the
latter need their services, or wish to punish them; and may God will