Copy of a letter which the Secretary, Gabriel de Hoa, sent to the Viceroy with the Royal Order.
Captain Quiros returns to the kingdom with the enclosed despatch, in pursuance of his discovery:—“I have assisted here in this cause with much trouble and inconvenience, and with great zeal, for the service of our Lord and of His Majesty. Your Excellency animates, enforces, and helps this enterprise in furtherance of the orders of His Majesty, whose will is that Captain Quiros shall have quick despatch and good treatment, which your Excellency will know how to extend to one whose labours and voyages merit recognition, and who again offers himself for other greater labours. May our Lord guard your Excellency as I desire.—Madrid, December 19th, 1609.”
[1] 6,000 quintals in the second Order.
[2] In the second Order:—“In this kingdom I have ordered 6,000 ducats in aid of expenses on the way out, and 3,000 quintals of iron to be bought at Seville, and sent out.”
Chapter XLI.
Of what the Captain did after he had received this Order, and how he was given another.
I was not satisfied with this Order, because it was confused, and did not give me the power that was necessary to order myself what was necessary for my despatch; and because in effect it left it open for the Viceroy to order from what port in Peru I should sail as he might choose. Remembering how badly the orders and decrees of His Majesty are complied with in distant provinces, even when they are very imperative, I began again to send in more memorials representing these inconveniences, and declaring that 500,000 ducats were required for my undertaking, and for what I had to spend and distribute; and I sent in a detailed account of how I had spent what was given me for the last expedition.
Don Francisco de Tejada told me that there were not wanting those who considered that the despatch they had given me was well enough. I replied that it must have been measured out according to my small merits, not according to the grandeur and necessities of the work. So I went on sending in more and more memorials to His Majesty, his Councils and Councillors, until in the month of May I was sent for by the Secretary, Antonio de Aroztegui, who told me that things had been arranged as I wished, as regards the terms of the Order and the expenses. I answered that the expenses of a cabin boy were enough for me personally if the despatch was good; that I did not put a price on my services. With this object I began new memorials to the Council of State, and when I thought that I was about to secure my desires, the business was again turned over to the Council of the Indies. In this Council, as the feeling was cold towards me and my cause, they turned and twisted much that His Majesty had ordered. On the 1st of November, 1610, they gave me an Order of the following tenor:—