_ 153 _ his Highness’s interest. Your Lordship will do me a great favour in ordering me to be sent a writ, or sending me one, so that every time he tells me there is no money I can put him in prison. If Your Lordship does not send me such a writ, I say henceforward that I do not consider that I hold this fortress by fealty. I cannot defend it alone, and in order to command these men I have to have power to see that they paid, for I do not have the means to do them any other favour. The reasons why I ask this of Your Lordship is because it is important for High Highness’s service to give me powers greater than those which the captains of this fortress have held until now. Bernaldim de Sousa will tell Your Lordship why, because these are things which cannot be written without annoying and angering Your Lordship with overmuch to read. Because of the many soldiers Bernardim de Soursa and his brother fed, and the poverty of this country, and because I was told that Your Lordship had promised him to send him here as a favour. I asked the factor to give each of them three hundred pardaus. I saw that this is feeble aid towards hi expenses, but I was guided by what Your Lordship did for him. I gave the factor a document in case Your Lordship did not approve of paying all this money,
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