_ 111 _ Then he had fled with the three hundred horsemen and with two hundred of them had gone over to Shah Tahmasp, and it was not known where the other hundred had gone. It has now been confirmed to me as a matter of certainty that two small terradas had gone to Basra carrying forbidden goods, and that there is in each one a Portuguese dressed as a Moor. I am told that these terradas had left before I came to this fortress. Your Lordship should be reassured that I shall make great efforts so that no one during my period of office no one dares to commit these offences. I have written to Domingos Barbudo whom I sent to Basra as I told Your Lordship, that he should capture these Portuguese and send them here to me under arrest so that I can send them to Your Lordship together with the goods they have taken illegally from His Highness, if he is able to do so. The Factor of this fortress arrived from there so much in debt from the amounts taken from him in the accounts that how he will ever obtain the money is not clear. This appears to me to be the way of all of His Highness's factors. From morning till night, he is always saying that he has no money, when I know that he has it because he has collected it. Up to the day on which I am writing this
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