And, as they continue to increase in strength, their ambitious designs will also extend further.

In the same degree as the enemy grows stronger, it is certain that our forces will continue to decrease--and so much that, if relief does not arrive there in time, the day will come in which not one of your Majesty's vessels can be placed on the sea, because of the many that the enemy will have there.

Inasmuch as there is no one in the world today who can oppose the enemy except your Majesty, they hate our interests with all their strength, and will attempt to destroy and ruin them by all possible methods.
The method of preventing all those most considerable troubles is the one that your Majesty is attempting, by despatching the eight vessels that you are sending under color of reenforcements--and would that it had been with a fleet of sixteen vessels, each one of which would carry three hundred sailors and soldiers and be very well armed with artillery.

For with that the rest [of the enemy's forces] would be driven away, and that crowd of thieves, who are becoming arrogant and enriching themselves--so much to the cost of our holy religion, of your Majesty's reputation and prestige, and of your most loyal vassals, by disturbing your Majesty's most holy designs--would be forced from those seas and even from these.

For it is very certain that if that [trade] be taken away, the enemy would have no resources with which they could preserve themselves; while if your Majesty has all that profit--as beyond doubt, God helping (for whose honor it is being done), you will have it, by encouraging your royal forces and by enforcing your holy purposes--all the heads of that many-headed serpent of the enemy will be destroyed.
Inasmuch as it is proper for us who, like myself, are zealous for your royal service, let us hasten on that service, by as many roads as God makes known to us.