_ 469 _ there because it is fruit that does not last well. I am sending Your Lordship few pears because there are not yet any of those of which there are many, thus I shall be doing what I learnt in my youth in my country from wise and good men, that when they could not offer much they offered little with good will and so I beg Your Lordship to receive my goodwill. May Our Lord be with Your Lordship and order your affairs well and prosperously. I kiss Your Lordship's hands. Baltasar Rodrigues is bringing a few turnips and a dozen partridges, if they escape the rigours of the sea. Ormuz, 30 November 1546. Sir, I had sealed this letter, and have re-opened it to write this. I was told by the Captain that the Guazil had told him that the agent of Shah Tahmasp had eleven fardos of silk in the customs house and said they belonged to the Shah, and asked for them to be given to him without paying dues. He told me this so I should give him my opinion. I answered that I thought it best not to grant exemptions in the customs house of our Lord the King, because if every time a caravan arrives the Shah's agent was to ask for ten or twelve fardos of silk, he would take a fifth part of the revenues of the customs house in this way. It was reasonable and sufficient to have let him off the dues on goods he brought when he came here, and another
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