TO THE READER

Summary

The monarchy of the Kings of Spain has been aggrandised by the zeal and care with which they have defended within their own hereditary kingdoms, the Holy Catholic Faith, which the Roman Church teaches, against whatsoever adversaries oppose it, or seek to obscure the truth by various errors, which faith they have disseminated throughout the world. Thus by the mercy of God they preserve their realms and subjects in the purity of the Christian religion, deserving thereby the glorious title and renown which they possess of Defenders of the Faith. Moreover, by the valour of their indomitable hearts, and at the expense of their revenues and property, with Spanish fleets and men, they have furrowed the seas, and discovered and conquered vast kingdoms in the most remote and unknown parts of the world, leading their inhabitants to a knowledge of the true God, and to the fold of the Christian church, in which they now live, governed in civil and political matters with peace and justice, under the shelter and protection of the royal arm and power which was wanting to them: weighed down as they were by blind tyrannies and barbarous cruelties, with which the enemy of the human race had for so long afflicted them and brought them up for himself.