Consequently, Gaspar Alvarez countersigned the licenses by declaring that he did so.

I do not know why so special a commission as this should belong to the government notary--especially when, because he may be busy or for just reasons, the governor does not sign them, and entrusts them to a trustworthy and qualified person who signs them.

For if this had to be given to the charge of the government notary, although from the division of the two reals he would get only the third, which would amount to five hundred pesos, besides another four hundred that he demands annually from the royal treasury, by arguments that moved them at a meeting of the treasury to concede them to him--but which I abrogated because it did not seem proper, as I have advised your Majesty before now, from which has resulted that anger of his--the whole would amount to nine hundred pesos of sure income, which means a principal of eighteen thousand pesos, although it only cost seventeen thousand, for which your Majesty sold the office to him.

The office yielded [_MS.

holed_: last ?] year, without counting these nine hundred pesos, more than two thousand five hundred.