_ 97 _ officials, the religious and clergy and the four quarterly payments to soldiers, guards and bombardiers, the fleets and supplies and munitions required for the fortress, and other essentials, and macarrias to the King of Lar and others. The fortress of Muscat can cost the King ten thousand cruzados per year for the salaries of the captain and Chief Treasury Officer and supplies, and they are also said from the revenues of the customs house of Ormuz. The rest of the money goes to India or is spent as the viceroy’s order. I have known two viceroys to pay ninety thousand pasdaos in a single year in awards to individuals, and one who in less than two years spent one hundred and fifty thousand pasdaos in writs for awards and old debts. When viceroys went to India to win honor, they did not waste a single cruzado on rewards or old debts in Ormuz, for as that customs house never owes money, they used to order that the money collected there should all be scent to prepare there fleets in India. Nowadays everything is spent in favors to relatives, and the payment of old debts at one third, and sometimes more than one half, and there is no end to the theft of dues for this, so the royal treasury is penniless and the customs house bankrupt. The king should command that this be investigated, and attention paid to the State, for it can be
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