20th. As for the other two causes similar to the above, of which I have also informed your Majesty, I remitted that of Captain Don Fernando Bezerra to Licentiate Legaspi; for certain persons, on seeing justice done in this land, say that it is not justice, but only passion, while others say that it is cruelty. Accordingly he concluded and judged it, and freed him. For the same reason, I committed to him the appeal to the Audiencia in the other cause of Don Joan de la Vega. While the latter, on my conscience, was more than guilty enough to suffer decapitation (to which I sentenced him), the same auditors so managed the cause that at last they did the same thing; they set him free, and condemned Captain Lucas de Mañozca, formerly alcalde-in-ordinary of this city—who aided me in this cause and others to the service of your Majesty—to the sum of five hundred pesos and other penalties, and caused him to suffer a considerable time in prison, and to spend for other particular objects much time and money.
[Marginal note: “You and the Audiencia have already been answered in regard to this matter, as to what must be done. Now you are ordered to send a copy of these processes and acts—so that, having been examined, the satisfaction that is proper may be obtained—and of the justice that has been administered in like matters.”[7]
21st. I am accustomed at times, for the sake of greater assurance, to refer to the Audiencia certain causes and matters that are of importance to your Majesty’s service and the obligation of my office—some, to one of the auditors, who consults with me in them; and in some, according to their nature—to ask them for their opinions. They are generally accustomed to excuse themselves from all of these, if they do not care to attend to them, and arguments or reason do not suffice for it. I cannot tell how they are to be compelled to act if reason does not move them, or unless your Majesty be pleased to order a reform in this matter, with the orders that concern each one, and what is to be done both in the above and in the declaration of jurisdictions—concerning which I wrote to your Majesty quite fully in letters of last year.
[Marginal note: “Observe the ordinances according to the despatches that have been sent you regarding this.”]
22d. I have committed the inspection of this country—which your Majesty ordered to be made by one of the auditors for the consolation and relief of its miserable natives, and of which no memorandum exists as to when it must be made—to Doctor Don Alvaro de Mesa, as he is in better health and more suitable for that purpose than are his other associates. Although he resisted (even saying that I could not appoint him), and even gave me other excuses, I think that he would do it after the conclusion of this despatch of ships, had not the commissions come for the residencias that your Majesty has entrusted to him. Consequently, when he concludes these, if there is nothing else to hinder, or another associate who may then be regarded as more suitable for it, he will have to do it. Yet I petition your Majesty to have him advised of his obligation in this matter.
[Marginal note: “These inspections are very essential, since they are based on the relief of miserable persons, and in no way can the condition of affairs be fully ascertained unless by means of these inspections; and the most advisable measures can hardly be well understood, if the condition and facts of what ought to be remedied and can be bettered are not known. Hence I again charge you to pay especial attention to these inspections. The Audiencia is commanded to observe the orders that you shall give in your capacity as president, so that each auditor, when it concerns him, may observe his obligations and go out on the inspections.”[8]]
23d. On receiving your Majesty’s despatch, in observance of your royal order that was directed to me, I gave his despatch to the fiscal, Don Joan de Alvarado Bracamonte, ordering him to refrain from going to the Audiencia and from the exercise of such office, and that he get ready to embark. He did so, and when he was ready for his voyage and had placed on board what he had for it, and while he was making his farewells preparatory to embarking: he was arrested by the judge of his residencia, in order that he might give bail for the claims and appear before the judge; and the property found to be his was sequestered. Thereupon, what he had aboard ship was taken ashore. I communicated to the Audiencia your Majesty’s royal order to embark, that he had received. It appeared right for him to give bail. That and other things were referred to the said judge, to whom I also showed the decree, so that he might facilitate the preparations of the said Don Joan and act according to justice. But it must be that he could not do so until now; for yesterday, when I had come from Cavite, and the ships had sailed—even being outside the bay, since they are not seen inside it—the notary of the residencia came to me to say that the judge had now remitted the imprisonment and removed the guards with whom he had arrested the said fiscal. As if now there were any resource for his embarcation; or as if one could send him, with his goods, household, and sea-stores, overland on the shoulders of Indians, in order to intercept the ship at the landing-place where these letter packets go out! I am sending a statement of the time when I was informed of it, lest the matter should be forgotten, or in case he should not choose to make this report. As I know him, and here are now recognized the unjust complaints that he makes, that the Audiencia have hindered him in part from the exercise of his commission, I deem it advisable that the truth be recounted, without leaving it solely to his relation; for I am sure that he has not been restrained in anything, and that in this regard the Audiencia has proceeded with circumspection and particular care, as they also know him. Although to all there his ancient hostility to us was apparent, for which reason the fiscal challenged his judge, the only provision made in the matter was that he be accompanied as should be deemed advisable by the acts. From them likewise will be apparent the certainty of the guilt of which he has been accused.
[Marginal note: “Have this section filed with everything touching the causes of this fiscal; and should there be any letter from the latter that discusses this point, let a report of it be made when this section is examined. Have the governor answered, that we are advised of this; and that he will be answered in a separate letter regarding this particular.”]
24th. Answering the letters and decrees that I received from your Majesty just now, in those matters that I shall not have answered and satisfied in the course of this letter, I declare that I have done or arranged most or a great part of what your Majesty orders in them. For I have always been careful to do all that I knew with certainty; or should consider to be advantageous to your Majesty’s service, the efficient management of your royal treasury, and the welfare of this land, without halting therein because of the lack of such royal commands and orders, but not exceeding those given to this government. Consequently, when I received the said letters, I had already suppressed the repartimiento of rice, a thing so unjust and harmful, as they informed your Majesty and as I wrote last year.
[Marginal note: “In regard to what you say in this section, you are to note that, for the better understanding of the correspondence that is maintained with you, you observe in the future the order that is always followed. You shall always advise us of the receipt of the despatches, with the day, month, and year of their date, and also the dates of your receipt of them. In its order you shall insert the section written you; and, after answering it, you shall go on to the next, observing the same order. By that means, what you have received and what you have answered to that particular case can be separately and explicitly ascertained, and although, with your good prudence, you shall have enacted certain things beforehand, which are already executed, in whole or in part, at the time of their ordering, or you shall have been intending such action, yet you shall advise us of what is ordered and of its fulfilment. That concluded, in a separate letter you shall report, as you are doing, of the other matters that it is advisable should be understood, in the department and office to which your correspondence goes, of what is ordered you, and what you have done, and the notice of what you say, so that you may be answered and what is advisable be provided.”]