'In the fifth place, because your Majesty, in the Cortes at present
assembled, has obliged your royal conscience to fulfil all the
articles voted for the public service, and the forty-ninth says:
"One of the things at present most necessary to be done in these
kingdoms, is to afford a remedy for the robberies, plundering and
murders committed by the Gitanos, who go wandering about the
country, stealing the cattle of the poor, and committing a thousand
outrages, living without any fear of God, and being Christians only
in name. It is therefore deemed expedient, that your Majesty
command them to quit these kingdoms within six months, to be
reckoned from the day of the ratification of these presents, and
that they do not return to the same under pain of death."
'Against this, two things may possibly be urged:-
'The first, that the laws of Spain give unto the Gitanos the
alternative of residing in large towns, which, it appears, would be
better than expelling them. But experience, recognised by grave
and respectable men, has shown that it is not well to harbour these
people; for their houses are dens of thieves, from whence they
prowl abroad to rob the land.
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