Juan de Oñate, 1595 
225 
they would get out of it the same as have others who have lost other ships 
with as little occasion as this. In respect to this there is a great abuse 
going on from which have resulted the injuries and losses of people and 
property that have been witnessed in this land, and it is because some of 
the masters carry on the ships so much money in bond that the freight is 
not sufficient to pay it, and they adopt the plan of losing them in order 
to remain free of debt. Although your Majesty has ordered that they 
shall not take on the ship more than a certain sum, it is not observed nor 
carried out, because of many frauds and tricks of which they make use. 
This is a matter for much consideration and calls for a remedy, which 
would be accomplished if your Majesty would order this carrying of 
money on the ships to be stopped, together with other measures that could 
be taken by the president and officials of the [Casa de] Contratación of 
Seville. 
Of the quicksilver that was burned at the port of San Juan de Ulua, as 
I have informed your Majesty, there have been taken out as many as . . . 
[There is a blank .] quintals, and it is still being taken out, although with 
some expense that is caused by it. 
The cédulas which your Majesty ordered to be sent to me on the twenty- 
seventh of last October I received on the twenty-seventh of this month, 
and as there has been so little time since then they have not been put in 
practice. I will endeavor so to put them and will inform your Majesty 
of it by the fleet. May God keep the Catholic person of your Majesty. 
Mexico, January 30, 1595. 
Don Luis de Velasco. 
[ On the back there is a decree which says :] Examined on September 20, 
1 595 : that of the viceroy Don Luis de Velasco of the thirtieth of January, 
and the enclosure. If there is anything lacking that is not provided for let 
the points be drawn up so that it may be provided. [With a rubric.] 
Petition to the viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, for the journey of explora¬ 
tion . . . and capitulations of the viceroy with Don Juan de Oñate. 
Mexico, September 21, 1595. 
In the City of Mexico, on the twenty-first day of the month of Septem¬ 
ber, 1595, before his Lordship, the viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, this 
petition was read. And, after he had examined what was asked for and 
presented in it by Don Juan de Oñate, he said that in conformity with the 
royal cédula directed to his lordship and dated at San Lorenzo on the 
nineteenth of July of the past year of 1589, and the paragraph in a letter 
of January 17, 1593, and another paragraph in another and last letter of 
June 21, 1595—copies of which are to be placed with these memoranda— 
he had accepted and did accept the offer of the person of the said Don 
Juan de Oñate, and he had chosen him and did choose him for the explora¬ 
tion, pacification, and conquest of the provinces of New Mexico. And 
responding in detail to the articles proposed by the said Don Juan, he 
