Juan de Oñate, 1596 
353 
tracted and agreed by virtue of his royal decree and provisions with his 
lordship, and with Don Luís de Velasco, his predecessor, or in case that 
said expedition is given to another person from now until then or from 
then until now, he asks for, with all due respect, both of the said royal 
decrees and any other despatches, in so far as they may be contrary to the 
said contract and agreement. He asks this so that [he may appear] before 
his Majesty and the said gentlemen, and his lordship, my lord, the viceroy, 
where he insists he will go to declare and state his cause and explain the 
said considerations, grievances, and injuries, asking for his rights and 
protesting against all the injuries and the diminution of profits that they 
may have caused or will cause him. This he gave as his answer and 
signed it with his name and asked for a certified copy of it and of the said 
royal decree and auto in defense of his rights, the witnesses being Fran¬ 
cisco de Esquivel, commissary of the said expedition, and Jaime Fer¬ 
nández, alguacil of the said inspection, to whom he entrusted the secret 
of the aforesaid; and they also signed it. Don Juan de Oñate, Fran¬ 
cisco de Esquivel, Jaime Fernández, clerk of his Majesty. 
In witness to all of which I, the said Antonio Negrete, affixed my sig¬ 
nature. Antonio Negrete. 
Copy of the letter of Don Juan de Oñate to the Count of Monterey, 
dated at the Rio de las Nazas, September 13, 1596J 5 
As I was about to cross the Rio de las Nazas—which is the most diffi¬ 
cult crossing as far as the provinces of New Mexico—with the greater 
part of the people who are going on this expedition, together with all the 
cattle, provisions, and ammunition which are necessary for it, and which 
I am under obligations to take, Don Lope de Ulloa gave me two letters 
from your lordship, both of the same purport, dated the twelfth of last 
month, and showed me the decree of his Majesty and the order which 
your lordship gave him [Ulloa] to inform and notify me, as he did. Thus 
it was that even here there finally arrived the interruption and interfer¬ 
ence which the devil, as the enemy of all good, has set to prevent and 
delay that which was to have been done by this expedition for a multitude 
of souls—who are under his dominion but who are longing for the bread 
of the divine gospel—by bringing them to the knowledge of our sacred 
faith; in which great service of God and of our lord, the king, and the 
increase of his royal crown, I as his loyal and faithful subject have desired 
and do desire to employ myself, continuing that which my fathers and 
ancestors have always done. 
The distress caused me by the contents of the royal decree and the 
threatening tenor of it is such that I am quite beside myself with grief 
and have great need of the comfort of the hopes which your lordship 
seems to have of the remedy which you expect by the fleet in answer to 
the messages and letters that you were pleased to send by the second 
despatch-boat to his Majesty and his royal Council of the Indies. Of 
their rectitude and Christian zeal no less can be expected than that they 
