_ 349 _ With this and other things that happened, he compelled a few of them to have a word with him at night and some during the day. In my opinion, they told him, not in very clear and plain words but in terms and in a manner that he could understand well, what they felt about the ways and means whereby this kingdom and city had been ruined and had reached the point in which it was. The Chief Treasury Officer repeated these things to Your Lordship in the same terms and manner in which they had expressed them to him, which did not seem bad to Your Lordship because they sometimes spoke like philosophers and others like hurt and afflicted people; on occasion like frightened and scared people, and on others like wary ones. These things are found more in this race than in any other. Although the pain and anguish of thus finding themselves destitute, with the country ruined and the king with nothing but his name, they were sometimes impelled to utter words which they regretted out of fear that it would be learnt that they had said them. Only one elaborated more than all the others and even sent documents to the Chief Treasury Officer, which I wrote, and he signed, so that with it he would tell Your Lordship everything that the man had said to him through me.
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