TRANSLATION OF THE LETTER FROM MEXDOZA TO THE 

 KING, APRIL 17, 1540. ' 



S.C.C.M.: 



I wrote to Your Majesty from Compostela the last of February, 

 giving you an account of my arrival there and of the departure of 

 Francisco Vazquez with the force which I sent to pacify and settle in 

 the newly discovered country, and of how the warden, Lope de Sam- 

 aniego, was going as army master, both because he was a responsible 

 person and a very good Christian, and because he has had experience in 

 matters of this sort; as Your Majesty had desired to know. And the 

 news which I have received since then is to the effect that after they 

 had passed the uninhabited region of Culuacan and were approaching 

 Chiametla, the warden went off with some horsemen to find provisions, 

 and one of the soldiers who was with hinij who had strayed from the 

 force, called out that they were killing him. The warden hastened 

 to his assistance, and they wounded him in the eye with an arrow, from 

 which he died. In regard to the fortress, 2 besides the fact that it is 

 badly built and going to pieces, it seems to me that the cost of it is 

 excessive, and that Your Majesty could do without the most of it, 

 because there is one man wlio takes charge of tbe munitions and artil- 

 lery, and an armorer to repair it, and a gunner, and as this is the way it 

 was under the audiencia, before the fortresses were made conformable 

 to what 1 have written to Your Majesty, we can get along without the 

 rest, because that fortress was built on account of the brigantines, and 

 not for any other purpose. 3 And as the lagoon is so dry that it can do 

 no good in this way for the present, I think that, for this reason, the 

 cost is superfluous. I believe that it will have fallen in before a reply 

 can come from Your Majesty. 



Some days ago I wrote to Your Majesty that I had ordered Melchior 

 Diaz, who was in the town of San Miguel de Culuacan, to take some 

 horsemen and see if the account given by the father, Friar Marcos, 

 agreed with what he could discover. He set out from Culuacan with 

 fifteen horsemen, the 17th of November last. The 20th of this present 



'From the Spanish text m Paclieco y Cardenas, Bocurnentos de Indias. vol. ii, p. 356. The letter 

 mentioned in the opening sentence is nut known to exist. 



2 Presuniahly the fortress of wlmli Samaniego was warden. 



Buckingham Smith s Florida gives many documents relating to the damage done hy French 

 brigantines to tin- Spanish West Indies during 1540-41. 



547 



