My principal care since assuming control as Governor has been to procure by all possible means to prevent the enemy from destroying at once this Province, and the few natives of it who have remained. When I took possession I called a meeting of the Board to discuss matters and we decided to retire the troops from the town of Santa Fe, adding those of San Francisco and the infantry that was at the pass of Salamototo river, as I have already informed you on the 20th of November, 1706, so that with a larger force we might resist the enemy, and the citizens of this City feel some relief. I had built on the line a thick palisade, as I informed you. I have also organized a company of cavalry who should go about on the skirts, as they have done, to gather up stores and guard the carpenters and persons who go out to work cutting timber for the Royal buildings. This has not sufficed to stop the enemy from continuing their scalping and hostilities which are being constantly felt. They come from the Indian villages bordering on the Carolinas, aided by the English, who supply them with guns, ammunition, knives and pistols; at times they even accompany them, which strengthens and encourages them so that all the terra firma along the southern coast is desolate. And each day the number of families these Indians carry off is increased. The Christians have all disappeared, no doubt they have taken and sold them into slavery--more than ten or twelve thousand persons have gone. I have about three hundred with men, women and children. Even these are being carried away daily, when they go out to gather (guano) palmetto with which the Indians clothe themselves--and wild roots which they use for eating, not having sufficient with the Royal Rations which we daily allow them. Today they bring me an account of how they carried off ---- to Mica, who had gone out in search of roots--in all they have carried today twenty-eight persons, four of whom escaped and have brought the news. The fact of there being some capitulation of peace would be much added to the service of God and your Majesty by relieving us of these miserable Indians. All the natives from this Province are sold, imprisoned or detained in the Carolinas. If a treaty could be made with England to prevent the English in Carolina from supplying them with arms, ammunition, etc., for it is with this they make war against us, and the dexterity with which they use them is amazing--as though they had been brought up to their use. Unless such a treaty can be immediately reached, hostilities will continue, and in this America there will never be anything but war. And the English will always have the Indians on their side, as they protect them and furnish them with arms and ammunition, as they have done heretofore. Unless this treaty can be effected immediately, the best thing for us to do will be to abandon the place entirely, as you have sug-gested, before they desolate it.