Esquivel wins settlers a one fifth tax on metals

… he wrote it, and they granted it, and this liberty was granted by a chapter of a royal Letter to the Governor. Another time the Sovereigns were petitioned that, as by the said capitulation the third part of cotton and other things that were not metals was to be paid, they should see fit that they pay only the fourth, and this by royal Provision, made at Medina del Campo, on the 20th of December of 503. Afterward, finding it likewise onerous to pay the Sovereigns the third of the gold, the Spaniards of this island again begged that they would not wish to take so much from them, and sent, as Procurator to the Sovereigns on this matter, a gentleman of Seville named Juan de Esquivel; and in the end the Sovereigns granted them that they should pay, of any metals, no more than the fifth, and this was by a royal Provision that began: “Don Hernando and Doña Isabel, by the grace of God, etc.;” and its date was 5 February 504, at Medina del Campo.