His people have been ill: it was necessary to keep guard, &c.
"He has done well" is in the margin.
He suggests the building of a fortress near the place where gold can be got.

Their Highnesses approve; and the note in the margin is, "This is well, and so it must be done." Then comes a paragraph about provisions, and a marginal order from the sovereigns, "that Juan de Fonseca is to provide for that matter." Again, there comes another paragraph about provisions, complaining, amongst other things, that the casks, in which the wine for the armada had been put, were leaky.

Their Highnesses make an order in the margin, "that Juan de Fonseca is to find out the persons who played this cheat with the wine casks, and to make good from their pockets the loss, and to see that the canes" (sugar canes for planting, possibly) "are good, and that all that is here asked for, be provided immediately." CASTILIAN INTERPRETERS.
So far, nothing can run more pleasantly with the main document than the notes in the margin.

Columbus now touches upon a matter which intimately concerns the subject of slavery.

He desires his agent to inform their Highnesses that he has sent home some Indians from the Cannibal Islands as slaves, to be taught Castilian, and to serve afterwards as interpreters, so that the work of conversion may go on.