_ 185 _ secretary took possession of this customs house which provided and paid for these, he passed the payment of them to the factor, to be paid in my presence to the ambassadors. He did this for about a year, but there were such protests and cries for me made to the captain that Martim Afonso de Melo reported this to the Governor Martim Afonso de Sousa in India, who, because of this and other things the secretary gave him he ordered that all the expenses were to be calculated, and it was found they came to about twenty thousand xerafins. He ordered that his should be paid to me from the factory and that I should undertake to pay the ambassadors, as I did by a legal document. But as the writ only mentioned ambassadors, I told the factor that payments to customs house officials and others and to Mughistan were left out, and he was to pay them until clarification came from India. I made this request because even the ambassadors were never paid within a month, as the order stated, nut often after three or four months. Some of them are paid extra for maintenance and fodder in addition to what they receive through coming at a time when the customs house is not bringing in money, and there are other extraordinary expenses which are not included in the standing orders for payment of the ambassadors. When I paid them, they were
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