24th. Answering the letters and decrees that I received from your Majesty just now, in those matters that I shall not have answered and satisfied in the course of this letter, I declare that I have done or arranged most or a great part of what your Majesty orders in them. For I have always been careful to do all that I knew with certainty; or should consider to be advantageous to your Majesty's service, the efficient management of your royal treasury, and the welfare of this land, without halting therein because of the lack of such royal commands and orders, but not exceeding those given to this government. Consequently, when I received the said letters, I had already suppressed the repartimiento of rice, a thing so unjust and harmful, as they informed your Majesty and as I wrote last year. [_Marginal note_: "In regard to what you say in this section, you are to note that, for the better understanding of the correspondence that is maintained with you, you observe in the future the order that is always followed. You shall always advise us of the receipt of the despatches, with the day, month, and year of their date, and also the dates of your receipt of them. In its order you shall insert the section written you; and, after answering it, you shall go on to the next, observing the same order. By that means, what you have received and what you have answered to that particular case can be separately and explicitly ascertained, and although, with your good prudence, you shall have enacted certain things beforehand, which are already executed, in whole or in part, at the time of their ordering, or you shall have been intending such action, yet you shall advise us of what is ordered and of its fulfilment. That concluded, in a separate letter you shall report, as you are doing, of the other matters that it is advisable should be understood, in the department and office to which your correspondence goes, of what is ordered you, and what you have done, and the notice of what you say, so that you may be answered and what is advisable be provided."] 25th. In the same manner, I have reduced the pay that it has been customary to give, of all those who came here with me. [_Marginal note_: "It is well."] 26th. In Terrenate there are four salaries of thirty pesos. Those who enjoy them are men of service and merits, both for aiding the governor and for their ability to enter and supply the lack of any captain, or to be entrusted with any post or affair that demands such a person. I am ignorant of the assignment and origin of these salaries, and by whom they were made. I shall inform myself of it from the documents of those forts, and ascertain what people are sufficient for them. I shall give your Majesty a full account of everything, so that you may take what measures you deem best. [_Marginal note_: "It is well. Observe what is ordained."]