5th. Item: That the said auditors in this country can rather be called honorable traders and merchants than ministers of justice, since they trade and engage in commerce quite openly. Under their protection their sons, relatives, and connections trade very extensively. This is a cause of very great injury to the poor, and to the inhabitants of this city; and they are defrauded in the division of the cargo, for the auditors’ freight is better looked after. Hence it follows that the auditors possess very large estates. They build elegant houses, at a cost of twelve or fourteen thousand pesos. They generally keep embroiderers at work in their houses publicly, just as any merchant keeps them.
6th. Lastly, after the arrival of the governor last year with the decrees that he brought from his Majesty, if the royal Audiencia was before a harm or of little use, it is now useless; because then its possible service was to oppose the said governor and to undo any injury or violence committed by the governor, but now that is prohibited by the said decrees of his Majesty. In them his Majesty orders the royal Audiencia not to contradict their president and captain-general in whatever the latter wishes to do, but to advise him of the governor’s actions, without opposing the latter, in order to avoid scandals. In order to give information of the governor’s want of prudence, no Audiencia is needed, for there are enough people here to advise you.
During former years this city petitioned his Majesty that he would be pleased to order the establishment of an Audiencia, because it was believed that it would be a check on the governor’s actions, which were not so well considered. Now this ceases with the said precautions brought by the governor, in which his Majesty orders that the auditors shall not oppose the governor, but that they only advise his Majesty of everything. As to the said Audiencia, their hands have not been tied by these new precautions, nor do the auditors pay any attention to them, for they have so ingratiated themselves with the governor, because he has advantaged them and their relatives and followers, and his Majesty is so far away.
[1] Baltasar Fort was a native of Moto in Valencia, though some say of Horcajo in the diocese of Tortosa. He studied Latin grammar at Villa de San Mateo. At Valencia he studied philosophy. He took his vows at the Dominican convent of San Esteban at Salamanca, May 2, 1586. After serving as prior and as master of novitiates in Aragonese convents, he went to Manila in 1602. Mart of his ministry there was passed in the province of Pangasinam. He served as prior of the Manila convent, and then as provincial, after which he was sent to Japan as vicar-provincial, whence he was exiled in 1614. He was definitor several times and once rector of the college of Santo Tomás, after which he was again prior of the Manila convent. He died in that convent without the last sacraments, October 18, 1640, being over seventy years of age.—See Reseña biográfica, part i, pp. 311, 312.
[2] Francisco Minayo was a native of Arévalo. After arriving at the Philippines in 1598, he labored extensively in Cagayán, where his ministry had good results. He was accused of the sin against nature, but after arrest and trial was released. Later he was prior of the Manila convent, and after his three years’ term returned to Cagayán, where he died at Lallo-c, August 25, 1613. See Reseña biográfica, part i, pp. 302–303.
[3] The following law was passed at Lerma July 23, 1605; and at Madrid December 19, 1618, and is found in Recopilación de leyes, lib. iii, tit. x, ley xiv: “The governor and captain-general of the Filipinas Islands shall take care to reward the soldiers who shall have served us there, and their sons, with the posts and profits that shall fall to his appointment, in accordance with the ordinance, and with full justification, so that they may have some remuneration, observing in everything the laws issued upon this matter.”
Relation of 1609–1610
Extract from the Relation of Events in the Filipinas During the Years 1609 and 1610, By Father Gregorio Lopez[1]