the little coming to me from the sale of my father's estate—a very small sum indeed—all the rest, I say, without omitting anything of money value, will amount, in my opinion, to something like five thousand pesos, and even that sum may not be reached. For, although, as I wrote and told your Majesty in former letters, it seemed—and when I wrote I believed—that I should have something to leave instead of so much to pay, yet matters have happened and fallen out in this way, and thus I find myself in my present condition. I am not grieving much over any need that may come to me, for by the mercy and goodness of God, if I had paid my debts and had nothing, I should be very rich in the pleasure of this knowledge. However, I am not without obligations to have some property, and I have very little and owe much that must be paid; and besides I have to give account both for myself and my father. My present declaration is not artifice, subterfuge, or a change of purpose from what I have previously expressed to your Majesty, as to my king and sovereign, but the truth and my earnest desire to see myself free from this burden and obligation of debt; and is intended that your Majesty might know that this least of your servants has these obligations and so little to pay them, in a country so distant and remote from his own. But leaving this in the hands of God and your Majesty, I say, Sire, that Don Ffernando set sail with the father prior upon the voyage; but, as it was late in the season, and the ship was Chinese, they put into port again, and thus I do not know if the voyage can be made and the reply received in time to advise your Majesty thereof by the ships which leave here in June, if perchance it can be made at all. Because I
