_ 362 _ benefit than this one, for to this port of Ormuz come and from it are sent all the goods which pay dues to Your Highness’s customs houses and fortresses in India. In addition to this the customs house here yields each year upwards of one hundred thousand xerafins a year, and especially as two thousand horses are sent from here each year, and for each horse forty-two gold pardaos are paid in dues in Goa or Chaul. Also, many silks and other goods are sent, which yield many dues in Your Highness’s customs houses. But I am seeing all this in decline, and this land going from bad to worse, and new problems arising every day, I have decided to give Your Highness a full account of it, for it grieves me deeply to see it going to ruin as a result of the many offences committed by Your Highness’s Captains and officials against merchants and foreigners and against the residents of this place by the greed with which they behave towards them. They do them violence and many other things of which I hesitate to write to Your Highness; and Your Highness should take very severe action against them. I strongly enjoin Your Highness to give thought to this place, for if it continues in this manner, it will be completely ruined.
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