ances to your Majesty, but to leave them in your royal hands. But, although our house is so small that we have only fourteen persons, it is impossible to live for half a year and provide for the rest, with the salary which your Majesty orders to be given to me. Your Majesty will be informed of this by those who are going there. If your Majesty desires that I should go about seeking money as alms, I shall do so, so far as that would not be derogatory to the pontifical dignity among these heathen. Again I say then, Sire, that your Majesty's church is so ill provided, that, in place of edifying the infidels and heathen who are here, it is a cause of scoffing among them. They say that, as they see the monasteries so richly adorned with ornaments that they have chalices of fine gold, their God must be greater than that of the secular clergy and of the friars; and they say other ridiculous things. And nevertheless there is no one to look after it, nor any one who is grieved over it except myself, who cannot remedy it. When I succeeded in discussing it with the governor and the officials of your Majesty's royal treasury, they shrugged their shoulders and said that, although your Majesty says in the instructions in general terms that this should be remedied, your Majesty does not point out how, or with what funds.
Besides this there is the little interest in spiritual things and Christianity among the laity. Sire, I wish, that I were in the presence of your Majesty to tell you by word of mouth of this matter, which is the most pitiable thing which has ever occurred or ever will occur to so Catholic and Christian a prince, and one on whom our Lord has showered such singular favors as to allow in his day the opening of the gate
