_ 467 _ offices Your Lordship granted him. He found himself in such a state with them that he left them, and he is going to serve Your Lordship because he thinks it is a good idea, and that in serving Your Lordship and being in your shadow he has much to gain and is safer from the calamities and excitements which may befall him if he is away from Your Lordship. By Sebastião Alvares, the brother of the Chief Justice General, I sent one hundred [...] in cotton goods to Basra, to get the pinnaces Your Lordship wants from there. He did not find them, and in the end he left a man there with his assets. I am expecting them any day now. Your Lordship may learn from him about the great abundance of pepper there was in Basra this year, and also of many other goods which go there from the coast of India without coming to this customs house. There are other goods leaving from Basra in the same way which do not come here. There are ways and means by which they are unloaded. When I know more certainly about this I will write to Your Lordship. Sir, this fortress is very ill-supplied with houses and it is more populated by animals. The men are waiting for houses which need a great deal of repair work, which cannot be done without planks to make a framework. These are in short supply and most of them are broken and fragile. To
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