Since all above stated is so, and since the inhabitants are perpetually and continually serving your Majesty with their persons, lives, and possessions, and by the intolerable burden of always bearing arms; and since all that is related in this memorial is evident from the investigations made at the citation of the fiscal, and by what the governors and the orders write: therefore it is just for your Majesty to honor and reward the inhabitants, since their services are so worthy of reward and remuneration; and since the said imposition of the said two per cent would be only an affliction and punishment, to have its enforcement discontinued, so that there may be no further question of it--which, as can be understood by the reasons above stated, has been and is the royal intention and purpose of your Majesty. For during the so many years that its execution has been suspended, your Majesty having been informed by the letters of the governors and royal officials of the difficulty of its observance, it has been abandoned and repealed in order to avoid so many and so great dangers as above stated, and injuries to the said inhabitants and residents of those islands--an intent quite in accord with the first decree of the said year six hundred and four, in which, although it was ordered to impose the said two per cent, it commanded that this was to be done with the greatest mildness possible. Consequently, as this mildness was not and could not be exercised, the imposition occasioning only great troubles and difficulties, the decree itself intimates, as if by express statements, that the said collection was impracticable. Thus the request of the said city and its inhabitants, and of the said islands, is that your Majesty be pleased to have it so declared and ordered, not only for the future, but also for the past; since the said royal decree has not been put in force, nor has it been advisable at any time, for either the future or the past. The impossibility [of enforcing the decree] is even greater [at this time], because of the many years that have passed, and the many persons against whom it might be attempted, who have died; so that to undertake it would mean nothing else than a beginning of lawsuits, and the disquiet and revolution of all the inhabitants of the said city, or of most of them--for those who have trafficked here from the said year of six hundred and seven are many, and most of them have died, without leaving any property from which to collect the arrears of duty--in case that that effort is made. By that [concession] the inhabitants will receive an especial favor, as is hoped from the greatness of your Majesty. Madrid, September 6, 1635. _Reply of the fiscal_