_ 101 _ be wasted, if we do not guard what we have won, to keep it safe and protect it until we have consolidated it. As to the difficulties you mentioned, of having so few soldiers to man the fortress and of not having a fleet, I say that my intention is to build the fortress as strongly as possible and to use the ships we have here to guard them. I shall send only one ship to India to ask for the bring what is required to ensure that we do not lose what we have gained with such hard labour, the best thing we have in India at the present time. The King has charged me with this responsibility, saying that, above all the rest of his commission I must do what seems best to me and he did not say that I should do as you advise; so I show and explain everything to you and require you to help me to do this, which seems to me important to the service of the King our master. The Captains were taken back to see that the Captainin-Chief was determined. They thought that to build this fortress he wanted was an act tyranny and hard labour, and they kept on repeating this, while the Captain-inChief insisted that the fortress must be built. Because to friends that ideas of their friends seem good, there were many noblemen who thought that the Captain-in-Chief’s intention was a good one, and the men were discouraged because none of them want to work.
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