Before the sovereigns Bastidas found no difficulty in justifying his conduct; and so rich were the returns from his traffic with the natives of Darien, that notwithstanding the unfortunate termination of the adventure he was enabled to pay a large sum into the royal treasury. For their important successes, to Rodrigo de Bastidas was awarded an annual pension of fifty thousand maravedís, and to Juan de la Cosa a similar sum with the title of alguacil mayor of Urabá, all to be paid them out of returns from the new lands which they had found. "Such," remarks Irving, "was the economical generosity of King Ferdinand, who rewarded the past toils of his adventurous discoverers out of the expected produce of their future labors."[III-9] [Sidenote: ARCHIVES OF THE INDIES.] The most fertile source of information relative to the early affairs of America is the _Archives of the Indies_, a general term comprising various collections in various places. From this source many writers have drawn, and are still drawing; many documents have been printed, and many yet remain to be printed. Altogether the collections are very numerous, as the government required full records, and in some cases copies, to be kept of official documents concerning discovery, conquest, and settlement. The several council-chambers and public offices where the business was transacted were the first depositories of these papers, the chief places then being Seville, Cádiz, and Madrid. In 1566 Philip II. ordered all collections, ecclesiastic and secular, to be united, and deposited in the fortress of Simancas. Again in 1717, when all the councils were consolidated in one, Felipe V., who founded the _Academia de la Historia_, among other things for the gathering and preserving of materials for history, directed all papers to be conveyed annually to the _Archivo de Simancas_. These provisions could not have been fully carried out, or else a very extensive system of copying must have been practised; for later, when the Archives were thrown open to the search of historians, the accumulation at Simancas, though large, did not appear to be much greater than at some other places. Further than this, there were family archives in the houses of those who had played prominent parts in public affairs, and ecclesiastical relaciones in the convents of the several orders, of little less importance than public records. And while the government insisted on the making of complete records, and observed great care in preventing their contents from being known, especially to foreigners, little pains was taken to preserve them from damage or destruction, or to arrange them for convenient reference. Therefore when they came to light it was in the form of bulky masses of unassorted, worm-eaten, and partially illegible papers. Many documents, mentioned by contemporary writers, are known to have been lost, and their contents blotted from existence. Fernando VI.,