I would, Sire, narrate in minute detail to your Majesty these labors, and those of many others, who lost their lives and possessions at various times to see the accomplishment of so important a matter, if I were not afraid of making a history of this letter--in order to entreat you that, since God our Lord ordained that a good desired by so many should be enjoyed with so great quietness in these most fortunate days of your Majesty, you will not permit the glory of this happiness to be disturbed and obscured; for the motives and efforts of so suspicious a people embarrass it. They, in order to gain their own private interests, try to cover them with this cloak of convenience and conservation of so superior authority. And although it appears that a great part of the former injuries are lacking today, since the kingdom of Portugal (although by light of a separate crown) is under the universal domain of your Majesty, still, the zeal and affection that your Majesty has always felt in greater proportion for the inhabitants of Castilla ought not on that account to cease; since there is also no cessation of the rancor and hostility with which the Portuguese, in all the Indias where they rule, withhold the friendly intercourse that they owed to the Castilians as the vassals of the same sovereign. I am quite persuaded that there is little difference between these two routes as regards the weather and dangers of the sea. For, although the Nueva-Espana vessels consume not longer than sixty days, and sometimes less, the return voyage is of longer duration, and the whirlwinds and gales more continuous. And although I believe that voyages made by way of the cape of Buena Esperanza take more than the three months that the prior and consuls assert (especially since the vessels have to stop at one or two way-stations), yet, in regard to this, I estimate the two routes as equal. But in point of certain security, the advantage lies greatly with the voyages made by way of the South Sea, as it is at all times so free from enemies. No further proof is necessary regarding this statement than the fact that not a single vessel going to and fro between Acapulco and Cavite and the port of Manila has been captured; [64] while very many vessels take that other route, which are so heavily armed that, in comparison with the first, one may consider them as more than fortresses. The warning that the Dutch make use of this route [_i.e._, through the Strait of Magellan] cannot force me to believe the contrary; and by it without so many advantages as those enjoyed by your Majesty's ships they have made themselves almost complete masters of all the Spice Islands, for they had no other routes from which to select this one. I assert from the prudence with which the Dutch consider what is of advantage to them, that if they could enjoy so great convenience as Nueva-Espana possesses, they would not take the risk of running by the coast and