[47] The manuscript is much confused at this point, reading y assi el Real instead of y assi al Perù—the idea of the copyist evidently being “Accordingly the royal [Council] concedes one ship annually to Nueva España,” etc., which does not make sense with what follows.
[48] Annuity assigned upon the revenue of the crown.
[49] Grau y Monfalcón leaves out of account the expeditions of Loaisa and Villalobos.
[50] This word is lacking in the manuscript.
[51] Spanish, angeos; i.e., Anjou linen, because it was obtained from that duchy; a coarse, heavy cloth of the poorer quality of flax. The linen of Rouen was fine.
[52] These words, lo mas, are omitted in the manuscript.
[53] See Cíeza de Leon’s account of the mines of Potosi, in his Chronicle of Peru (Markham’s translation, Hakluyt Society’s publications, London, 1864), pp. 386–392. He says that he himself saw (1549) the amount of the royal fifths, 25,000 to 40,000 pesos each week; and that these for the years 1548–51 amounted to more than 3,000,000 ducados. Cf. Acosta’s description, in his History of the Indies (Hakluyt Society’s publications, London, 1880), i, pp. 197–209; he reckons the fifths as 1,500,000 pesos (of 13¼ reals each) yearly. Both writers state that much of the silver was never reported to the royal officials.
Humboldt makes the statement (New Spain, Black’s translation, iii, p. 372) regarding the yield of Potosi from 1624 to 1634, that it was 5,232,425 piastres (or pesos; of eight reals each)—as translated, “average years,” which presumably is intended for “yearly average.”
[54] See Vol. XV, p. 293.
[55] Here occurs, in the manuscript, a later sentence copied in the wrong place.