This evil result follows from the fact that your Majesty granted the city the income received from these shops; and many ducados are received for them, as is manifest in the said official statements. To remedy this wrong, it is desirable that your Majesty command the number of shops to be definitely limited, and direct that in one shop one man only may live, who shall have some known occupation and be a Christian. It would be well also to limit the number of ships which may come and the number of persons that they may carry, commanding that when the number is full no more shall be received into the port, and that no vessel shall be admitted which carries more than the appointed number. It would be well to provide also that if the city exceed these limits, in the number and kind of the shops, the grant allowed for the same be revoked. When I entered upon the functions of this office, I discovered a serious irregularity in the succession to encomiendas of Indians. Your Majesty commanded that such encomiendas should descend from father to son or daughter, and, in default of children, to the wife of the encomendero, definitely stating that the succession should come to an end there. Yet without attracting the attention of anyone, important as the matter is, the wife has succeeded to her deceased husband, and then after she has married a second time and has then died, the second husband has succeeded the wife, and so on _ad infinitum_. Thus it has come about that nearly all the encomiendas are far from their original assignment, the majority being in the hands of undeserving persons. The result is that it is a marvel if an encomienda is ever vacant; for none has been regarded as vacant unless the possessor has died without being married or without issue. Since this wrong is universal, and is of great importance--affecting, as it does, the common interests of all the islands--I have deemed it proper to advise your Majesty of it, in order that you may ordain that which shall be most to your Majesty's service. This may be carried out by commands given by your Majesty to the governor to declare all encomiendas vacant in which the rule of succession shall have been transgressed. Then since some of them are in the hands of deserving persons, in spite of the improper way in which they have been obtained, they may be regranted; while many others will remain unassigned and open for granting to soldiers who have served, but who remain in poverty and almost in despair of ever receiving a reward. The only reward in these islands is the encomiendas; and, as they are perpetuated in the way described, one is never vacated except in very unusual circumstances--unusual, that is, for this country. Here, for a woman to be of advanced age is not enough to prevent her marriage, so much is the succession to her encomienda coveted. The reason for failing to institute proceedings against all these people is, that they are