_ 44 _ of Your Highness will testify against him or, if called on his behalf, will blame You Highness for everything. Besides, the Vice-Governor is not short of duties and has more to do than to be enquiring into how people live and act. Your Highness has such high costs and expenses in this land and so little to offset them that now, however small a transaction takes place in your service, it cannot remain undetected. If, until now, the robbing of your treasury by your Governors was not so noticeable, it was because of the great amount of money involved in the merchandize coming from Portugal covered the costs and the uncontrolled expenses incurred could not be easily discovered, so the harm that Your Highness suffered by these ships sailing was not noticed, and they brought huge profits to the Governor, secretaries, servants and friends of the Governor. Only very few did not think it right to seize so much of what pertained to your interests. However, if they are told and are aware of the danger this land is in, without the wherewithal to support itself, and of how much they risk by this, they would not be so friendly to the crooked dealers and they are against your interests in thinking that outsiders are not able to understand or appreciate the needs of this land, because
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