Note 4 — LETTER FROM ANDA TO CARLOS III

I understand well, Sire, how if he considered all those motives, and that from them would follow the total ruin of these islands, he should then on that account have condescended to redeem them [from ruin] by ceding them, in regard to the fact that this could not be of any service to the English, since it only concerns your Majesty. But to give credit to these two traitors, who knowingly exaggerated these disturbances to him, and not to proceed, with more knowledge, to write me in place of the letters ordering the Spaniards to descend, to inform him regarding the condition of the provinces, and advise me, for my course, of what was happening in Manila, by directing prudently so glorious an end after the twenty odd days that the fort had been taken; and continuing the obligation to surrender these domains with the tenacity which his above-cited letters show, (although the most of the suggestions of the two traitors were now seen to be false, as the provinces were quiet), he proceeded to sign the cession, and even after seeing the Catholic arms so flourishing and powerful, whose victories, patent to all the world, were incredible to his Excellency, yet he prosecuted this undertaking even to the grave.4 In truth, Sire, I do not know what apology that venerable prelate can give your Majesty for such actions.