.

Now even if my condition be reasonably good, I think no one has reason to envy me.

Nevertheless I have said it in your Lordships' Assembly, and I repeat it solemnly on this occasion, that I have pondered the state of my affairs during my recent illness and found that in order to leave my children unencumbered estates I must sell property to the value of 60,000 or 70,000 florins.

This I would rather do than leave the charge to my children.

That I should have got thus behindhand through bad management, I beg your Highnesses not to believe.
But I have inherited, with the succession of four persons whose only heir I was and with that of others to whom I was co-heir, many burthens as well.