_ 112 _ this letter I can only give Your Highness further account of what has happened since the last time I wrote to Your Highness. I have constructed a bulwark around the fortress, which surrounds the church. The wall is 15 palmos high and 15 thick including the 6 palmos which the old wall had, it is now 36 palmos high, which means that it is impossible to round it or knock it down any. In another letter which I wrote to Your Highness, I informed you that I was taking a decision on [pearl] fishing and the hope that Our Lord would send me a big catch of pearls and seed pearls for [Your Highness]. I went personally to the activity because I did not trust anyone else. I did not, however, have the chance of serving Your Highness in this [matter] because the gods have reserved it for someone else. Although we gathered up some oysters, with some seed pearls [in them], the oysters, were still very small. The fisher men say that within the next three or four years the catch will be much more. May it please Our Lord that to be so and that Your Highness may have a treasure kept here. I am not little envy Dom Manuel da Silveira because he will come to take the thanks for what
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