Hitherto, my dear Aza, engaged only in the affairs of my heart, I have said nothing to you concerning those of my mind; yet these are not less perplexing because I have omitted to write them. I experience one entirely unknown among us, and which nothing but the equivocal genius of this nation could invent.

The government of this empire, quite opposite to that of yours, must certainly be defective. Among us, the Capa Inca is obliged to provide for the subsistence of his people in Europe; the sovereigns subsist only on the labours of their subjects, by which means their crimes and misfortunes proceed chiefly from unsatisfied necessities.

The unhappiness of the nobles arises in general from the difficulties they are under to reconcile their apparent magnificence with their real misery.

The common people support life by what is called commerce or industry, the smallest evil arising from which is insincerity.

Some of the people, in order to live, are obliged to depend on the humanity of others, which is so bounded, that those wretches can scarcely be said to exist.

Without gold, it is impossible to be possessed of any part of that land which Nature has given in common to all men. Without having what they call wealth, it is impossible to have gold; and by a false conclusion, contrary to reason and the light of Nature, think it a shame to receive from any other than their sovereign, the means of life, and the support of dignity. By this method, they give that sovereign so small an opportunity of bestowing his liberality, that the number of his subjects who are provided for by his favours are so few, in comparison of those who are miserable, that there would be as much folly in pretending to any share in them, as there would be infamy, in obtaining deliverance by death from the impossibility of living without shame.