Besides this, there are their tyrannical laws and customs. [_It will be understood that your Majesty has a specially true and holy title to these kingdoms of Peru, because your Majesty and your most sacred ancestors stopped the sacrifices of innocent men, the eating of human flesh, the accursed sin, the promiscuous concubinage with sisters and mothers, the abominable use of beasts, and their wicked and accursed customs[20].]_ For from each one God demands an account of his neighbour, and this duty specially appertains to princes, and above all to your Majesty. Only for this may war be made and prosecuted by the right to put a stop to the deeds of tyrants. Even if they had been true and natural lords of the soil, it would be lawful to remove them and introduce a new government, because man may rightly be punished for these sins against nature, though the native community has not been opposed to such practices nor desires to be avenged, as innocent, by the Spaniards. For in this case they have no right to deliver themselves and their children over to death, and they should be forced to observe natural laws, as we are taught by the Archbishop of Florence, Innocent, supported by Fray, Francisco de Victoria in his work on the title to the Indies. So that by this title alone, without counting many others, your Majesty has the most sufficient and legitimate right to the Indies, better than any other prince in the world has to any lordship whatever. For, whether more or less concealed or made known, in all the lands that have been discovered in the two seas of your Majesty, north and south, this general breaking of the law of nature has been found.
[Note 20: For a contradiction of these slanders by an impartial witness see Cieza de Leon, ii. p. 78.]
By this same title your Majesty may also, without scruple, order the conquest of those islands of the archipelago of "Nombre de Jesus," vulgarly but incorrectly called the Solomon Isles, of which I gave notice and personally discovered in the year 1567; although it was for the General Alvaro de Mendaña; and many others which are in the same South Sea[21]. I offer myself to your Majesty to discover and settle these islands, which will make known and facilitate all the commercial navigation, with the favour of God, by shorter routes. I offer much, well do I see it, but I trust in almighty God with whose favour, I believe I can do what I say in your royal service. The talent which God has given me leads me to aspire to the accomplishment of these achievements, and does not demand of me a strict account, and I believe that I shall comply with what will be required, for never did I so wish to achieve anything. Your Majesty sees and does not lose what other kings desire and hold by good fortune. This makes me speak so freely of my desire to die in your service in which I have laboured since my childhood, and under what circumstances others may say.