Juan de Oñate, 1596 
355 
will approve of what your lordship has decided upon after mature con¬ 
sideration and consultation and will order me to continue the expedition 
which I have begun with excessive expense and labor, although the expense 
promised by the delay and the suspension of my execution and continu¬ 
ance of it are not less but much more, and the difficulties which I shall 
mention further on are much greater. The more I consider it the more 
my pain and grief increase. 
And although this is such that it cannot be exaggerated in words, that 
which I feel because of the harsh and threatening expressions contained 
in the auto of your lordship designed to compel me to obey and fulfill the 
orders contained in the decree of his Majesty, is beyond comparison much 
greater. For it was sufficient that such were the orders of my king and 
lord for me to obey them and place them upon my head as his faithful 
vassal, and even though any difficulty should have been feared, it was 
enough that I was the creature of your lordship and the work of your 
hands to be sure that with half a line in a simple letter I would have 
trampled under foot any difficulties, losses, or reasons that might have 
occurred to me to appeal from the said decree and auto. Indeed it is 
enough that your lordship has never known in me anything less than a 
very great desire to serve you and much punctuality in obeying you and 
carrying out whatever you have ordered me to do, as I have done and do 
on this occasion, in which—although it is the most difficult that could 
occur to me, for by it is risked the loss of a considerable sum of money, 
the waste of the fruit of excessive labors, the failure of the advancement 
which my person and house might have had, and great diminution of my 
reputation and prestige—with all this, and without heeding these and 
other innumerable difficulties which occur to me as very just cause for 
appealing from the commands given me in his Majesty’s decree and by 
your lordship, I have esteemed the proof of my loyalty and fidelity more 
highly than all that which may be lost, and I have obeyed it, and do obey 
it, and place it upon my head. I shall carry out what is commanded me 
in it and the auto with such punctuality that, although it may be, as in 
fact it must be, at the cost of greater and more excessive expenses and 
losses, I will delay the said expedition and try to retain all the people whom 
I have gathered with the greatest dissimulation that may be possible, as 
your lordship orders, without touching the ammunition, cattle, provisions, 
and other things which I have provided for it until his Majesty, or your 
lordship, in his royal name, orders otherwise. I am satisfied that as a 
Catholic and Christian prince he will not permit that I should receive such 
a notable injury as would be done to me in taking from me the said expe¬ 
dition, but rather that, after considering the notes which your lordship 
sent by the second despatch-boat and the reasons which there are for not 
removing me, he will order me to continue it as I have begun it. That 
there might be no failure—through lack of care and diligence which your 
lordship urges upon me—as a result of possible action by the people that 
might be feared, and that there might be no longer delay in the accom¬ 
plishment of the good results which are claimed for the expedition in the 
great service of God and of his Majesty, I would be glad to have to-day 
500,000 dollars to spend on this occasion with the same good-will and 
