_ 423 _ The King is now asking His Holiness for the facility to make the clergy pay for seventy galleys, which at six thousand cruzados a galley comes to four hundred and twenty thousand cruzados per year. It is a case of request: the needs are great, the claim of the cause is just, kings can and must avail themselves of such means in their works if they spend it on what they ask it for; and when their wealth is not sufficient to cover everything, they are not wrong to help themselves with the wealth of others who cannot, nor are obliged to serve in any other way. The revenues of the churches in Spain must be large if they can meet such heavy charges, since they have had from ancient times the obligation to pay thirds to the king. I have paid John Ferruja, who came from Cairo with the information from Becudo which I sent to Your Highness, the thirty cruzados he was owed by the men in Cairo. I also gave him the twenty which Your Highness ordered he should have because of what he suffered, taking into account his labour and his expenses in coming here, the discomfort and hardship of the poverty which he suffered, and this for serving the six months he spent waiting for this reply in my house. To these words and many others, he added tears which moved stones, because there is reason and justice in
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