Sire:
Immediately upon my arrival in this country, I informed your Majesty, at the first opportunity, of everything possible, both of the condition in which I found affairs here, and of what I could conjecture in the beginning made by the new governor, Don Alonso Fajardo—of whom I immediately conceived suspicions and fears—and in the little that I saw of the beginnings of his government, by which he would not satisfy the need of the country for justice and [good] administration. Then in my next despatch,[1] [I informed you how this idea was confirmed] by the demonstrations which may be called want of prudence; then, at intervals, I continued to add to my letters whatever occurred that was more intimately connected with this particular. Thus have I been doing on all the other occasions when ships have sailed from this country, both for Mexico and via Yndia, in addition to what the Audiencia has written to your Majesty. Although it has been impossible to inform your Majesty so minutely of everything, because it must be done with all possible caution and secrecy, in order to escape the violence and force of the governor—who with extraordinary vigilance and solicitude examines the mails, in order to seize the letters—and this obstacle has been aided by the multitude of affairs, still less, Sire, can that be attempted now when they have an exact number. But the extravagance of the governor’s actions seems to be in excess of human capacity, and of such sort that, although it be morally impossible to point them out, it is more impossible, even when inadequately described, to believe them; for in my opinion it is incredible when spoken or heard, and scarce will be believed when seen, at least to men who recognize the loyalty that they owe to their God and their king. Accordingly, and as it is so necessary, in order to fulfil the obligations of my conscience, to inform my king, continuing the account that I have given hitherto of the wretched condition to which the governor has reduced the country (and this cannot be specific and particular, because of the multitude of his reckless acts or excesses, as above stated), I shall relate, as succinctly as possible, some little that will serve as an indication of what I shall leave unsaid. Hence, Sire, I say that, from what we see here, what the governor is doing is to expend your Majesty’s royal revenues on the one hand, uselessly, without the careful consideration of facts which is necessary to obtain results for the service of your Majesty, and with very indolent attention; and on the other hand, contriving to secure with them his own advantage, under color of service to your Majesty, by sending your Majesty’s ships to Yndia, Macan, and other regions for his own negotiations, under pretext of sending them for military stores and other things for the royal service. In this way he defrauds your Majesty of a vast sum of ducados, a thing that could be given another name. In still another direction [he acts unjustly], by giving warrants to pay due-bills, and that not to the owners of those bills, but to persons who buy them at one-third and less [of their face value]. To such persons does he open the doors to pay them, while they are shut on the wretched owners without recourse. [That is done] perhaps, in order to make them sell their claims; for of the two-thirds or more remaining from the face value of the due-bill for their service of wealth, a great share of profit falls to the governor, as is openly muttered. This is affirmed by many conjectures, and especially by the fact that it all passes through the hands of his retainers and partisans, and those of his household. All this is done to the neglect of building ships and preparing the supplies necessary for the defense and conservation of the country.
The governor is also managing to make vast profits from consignments of goods; and—as is hinted, and even affirmed, however secretly he attempts to keep his affairs—a great part of the consignments are supplied by the royal treasury of your Majesty, and the royal income from the licenses given to the Chinese to remain in the country aids him not a little. That sum amounts nearly every year to one hundred and thirty thousand pesos, for many of the Chinese remain, thus incurring the risk of another insurrection, notwithstanding the so strict decrees in which your Majesty orders the very opposite, and prohibits their remaining. That money was formerly collected and placed in the treasury through the intervention of the royal officials. The governor has ordered it to be collected by one of his servants and paid whenever the latter chooses, so that vast sums are always due to the treasury. I have been assured that forty thousand pesos are still owing this year, which it is said that the governor is using for his trading, as well as even the salary which is generally given the collectors. For that reason, when the servant receives the money that the Chinese pay for their licenses, it is weighed, and if it is under weight, he demands two or three reals more; but when he delivers that part of it which he chooses to pay into the treasury, as I have said, he does not deliver it by weight, but by count, and thus keeps the profit of the two or three reals. That amounts to about four thousand pesos. It is sometimes even said that what he delivers into the treasury on the principal account he pays in warrants bought by the schemes and channels above mentioned. So many of these things are attributed to his master, the governor, that I am ashamed to relate them, for I do not believe them—or at least I suspect that they are exaggerated. For it is even said that that servant gives false licenses instead of the true ones, which he distributes to the Chinese at the same price as the good ones, and keeps the money for them. It is said that the governor has money taken from the royal treasury secretly at night. Thus do they say, and attribute things to the governor by so many and so diverse roads, that one is scandalized on hearing them—both about the royal revenues and about other particular things in the matter of profit. What I know for certain is that the governor does not have the accounts audited annually in January, as your Majesty orders, by the president and two auditors. On the contrary, the accounts for years before he assumed the government are so far behind that they have not yet come to those of his government, although he has been here three years. In those accounts preceding—although I am one of the two auditors whom your Majesty orders to audit the accounts together with the president; and although I say many things about his negligence—I have not been sufficient, for he is the one who has to take action therein. I believe that he has not attended to this matter, but rather has utterly neglected it; for I am persuaded that, in reaching the accounts of his own term, he has to keep things very private for the above-mentioned reasons. I do not know whether he fears to have the accounts made public; and besides that I should be the judge of them, for he knows that many worlds could not, through God’s mercy, move me one jot from my strict observance of your Majesty’s service.
Also the governor tries to violate justice, and to prohibit the punishment of evildoers, [at the same time] prosecuting and punishing the good and innocent; for he protects the former and abhors the latter, inasmuch as the one class do his will, while the others note and hate the evil things that he does. To them he offers insults, and to the others he gives offices and honors. In suits there must be nothing done but his pleasure, even though the suits be pending in the Audiencia, especially if they belong to persons devoted to him, or to those whom he hates; and he acts therein with so great violence that, when his desires are not carried out, he stops the course of the suits and takes them to his own house, so that the Audiencia may not pass any sentence contrary to his will. No one dares to demand justice from him, or any clerk to notify him of the vote of the Audiencia, while the parties to the suit call out to God in the streets. When it suits his pleasure, he takes charge of the criminal causes, and says that he does not wish a case to be prosecuted further, or that such a person be punished. Consequently, the number of the evildoers (and it is for them that he acts thus) increases so greatly that the scandal arising from it is pitiful. Malefactors also are more numerous because, when the whim takes him to forsake the other methods, the governor orders the warden of the prison to let the prisoners go, even when they are imprisoned for serious crimes; or he does this secretly, so that no one should know it, and under pretext that they are needed for war or your Majesty’s service. But he does the very opposite if it is a matter not to his taste, even though the prisoners be guiltless. His actions are still more objectionable when he goes to inspect the general prison, where he prevents the auditors from having any vote, and they are allowed to do only what he wishes; while he threatens them that he will dash out their brains with a club, and other serious things.
The governor also makes a practice of neglecting and not observing the decrees and orders of your Majesty, interpreting them to his own satisfaction, or pretending that he has not got them, when he does not wish them to be known, even though he should be plainly told of them; and even if he knows it, he regards everything according to his own pleasure and preference. If any one murmurs or says a word, he is prosecuted, and his innocence is punished with violent imprisonment. The governor even takes away his natural defense so that he cannot appeal or demand justice; and the governor searches for contrivances to annoy those who do not approve his doings.
The governor also makes a practice of being so absolute in everything, that he does not only what is mentioned above so summarily and in general terms—for, as I have stated to your Majesty in the beginning, it appears difficult in each of these subjects to enumerate the things that he does (even, in my judgment, only the weighty and more serious ones)—but also in regard to various other matters does he act and proceed in the same manner. Consequently, I believe that there is no man who will not affirm that from the time that the governor entered this country, he has done no good thing, but all in disservice of your Majesty, at least in the regular procedure. For if he calls treasury meetings, if he sometimes attends the Audiencia and sessions, or does any other act by reason of his office, there is no one who does not understand that the ends and objects of his acts are his own conveniences, vengeance, and passions or the conduct of his own affairs and those of all his following—as has been apparent to me at many times, on occasions when I have been able to be present by virtue of my office. Yet he neither wishes the auditors to counsel or advise or influence him, nor that a word be said about his actions. On, the contrary he manages to get all his affairs approved especially by those persons holding office, such as regidors, royal officials, and others, and not only laymen but ecclesiastical persons. Consequently he seeks with most strenuous efforts the life of those laymen who do not approve his acts, both in public and in private. He threatens to proceed against them, either personally or through intermediaries, for the most remote and trifling irregularity that can be imagined; and he brings suits without hesitating, when he finds no witnesses, to secure others, even though they be false. To them he furnishes offices and other accommodations for that service, as many dare to say; and there is no longer any redress or protection, or at least that which is usually a safeguard destroys them. Consequently they endeavor to please him, without considering what he asks or what they do. Hence it results that neither the royal officials nor the regidors, nor any other persons whatever whom he may need—either that they may give him their approval, or that they may suit his pleasure—whether in violation of ordinance or decree of your Majesty or for whatever he might desire, exercise their offices with freedom. Thus outraged and tyrannized over is all this community—so much so, that I have been told secretly that the regidors have sent your Majesty a chart of a certain victory which they pretend that the governor has gained from the Dutch enemy who generally frequent these coasts, in which they pretend that the governor burned and put to flight their ships by his plans and arrangements. God knows the truth, and whether that is so; but I can never persuade myself of so great corruption; for such a thing never happened, and the governor has here a sufficiently wretched reputation. In this matter, and regarding a matter of such gravity, it was told me that when a regidor who privately told it was asked how they had done such a thing, he had answered by asking what they would have done if a traitor had come to govern them. Although that is not public, but was told in private, your Majesty will learn it there by its effects if that chart has reached you. But what is public is that the governor says that your Majesty should have patience; and since you sent him here he will conduct affairs according to his own pleasure. He either threatens ecclesiastical persons, even though they are friars, that if they do not act the same as the laymen, he will take from them the stipends given them by your Majesty, or he does not pay them; and he has oppressed them so that not even do the preachers dare to utter truths in the pulpit, both by his threats and because he dishonors them, and says that they are living in concubinage, and that he will have them stabbed. However, the chief reason why they have ceased to preach, as I have been told, is because all conclude that it is a matter that has no remedy, and that, since they attain no results, they do not care to ruin themselves; and so they abandon it as a matter already adjudged. By these acts of violence on the one hand, and with the flattery of some on the other, he obtained a guaranty to your Majesty in order, as is understood, to screen by it, or at least to moderate, the enormity of his acts. He also avails himself, for this purpose, of threats to the notaries, of nothing less than the galleys and their ruin; or they are given to understand that they must not give official statements of anything requested from them, especially to persons who he thinks will write to your Majesty. He has under his influence one Pedro Muñoz de Herrera, who is clerk of court for the Audiencia, with whom he negotiates those statements that he wishes; and there is even a very evil rumor that the latter will give them even though they are not true, and that he gives them from the official records as demanded, even when these are defective—not only by what is known of the person of each one, but because the governor has favored, protected, and placed him by force in the Audiencia. [This has been done] both in a murder that the governor committed on the person of his wife, and in many other matters. Finally in violation of your Majesty’s decrees which order that the offices be sold, he has, after having granted some gratuitously for his own objects, without selling them, refused to adjudge the office of secretary held by Pedro Muñoz to one Diego de Rueda, who bid eight thousand pesos for it, in order that Pedro Muñoz might not be deprived of it; while he gave it to the latter for one thousand five hundred pesos, which the said Muñoz had bid for it, and that sum was paid in purchased pay-warrants, in order to give it to him gratis, as is well known. He manages the clergy in the same way; and, as he suspected that the cabildo of the church wrote a letter to your Majesty last year, they have, since he learned something of this matter, endured a little tempest until they have been able, by certain paths that they have learned, to watch him. This present year I fear that they will not write, in view of the extraordinary care with which they see that the governor seizes the letters that are sent to your Majesty. The whole country is so fearful of such interference that each one, I think, will seek an extraordinary way in order to save his letters. Some are thinking of putting them in boxes of merchandise, for which reason I fear that some will be left; and, as I have said, it might be that these will be the letters of the cabildo of the church—not only because of the aforesaid reason, but because, although I see that the archbishop is annoyed at the acts of the governor, and as I understand, those affairs cause him internal anxiety through his desire of remedying them, there is among outsiders considerable grumbling because he flatters the governor and humors him in many ways (which leads people to think that the cause for it is certain accommodations for his servants and relatives that the governor gives him); and because of certain injuries which they think could at least be abated with less compliance [on the archbishop’s part]. But I do not agree with that, notwithstanding that I might commend [more] effort [by the archbishop]; for I know the governor’s temper.
The governor also makes a practice of neglecting and sleeping over affairs of good government, a policy that is fitting[2] for the conservation of the country in peace and in the service of God; and he lives in a profound slumber, and neglects taking any precautions whatever—although the enemy so frequently invades these coasts, with new forces each day on the sea; while on the land are great numbers of Chinese Sangleys and Japanese. This has long caused many men of loyalty and high standing to be anxious with the memory of the past insurrection of the Sangleys; and not less is the anxiety caused by the Japanese, for they are numerous and are an extremely warlike race.[3] And although the governor has orders and decrees from your Majesty that only the number who would be necessary for the ordinary service of the trades of the country shall remain here; and although the facts are well known to him, besides that he has been often told of this, both in and out of official meetings: yet he does not discuss its remedy, but only talks of making outside demonstrations by which he will accomplish much. But one would believe that he means that he will do much evil. May God in His mercy keep that evil far away. The governor does the same in what concerns the enemy on the sea; for not only does he not discuss, nor has he discussed, the building of ships in order to be prepared, as did Don Juan de Silva, to go to meet the enemy, but on the contrary, when he reached this land, although the galleons built by Don Juan de Silva had been wrecked, and although the Audiencia which was then governing had ordered, notwithstanding that the treasury did not contain a single real, some ships to be built, so that they might be finished in place of those which had been wrecked, yet the governor, on finding them on the stocks at his arrival, ordered all work to cease, and only two ships were finished. He ordered even those vessels to be reduced in size, whereat there are not wanting those who grumbled that he did it in order to have trading-ships instead of warships.[4] He has not built any others during all these three years, although the employees in the accountancy of the royal treasury assure me, and it is without doubt so, that he has spent three millions [of pesos] of your Majesty’s royal incomes from these regions, and of the funds brought from Nueva España, during three years. That is a very great pity here, for it is to be presumed that he has spent a great portion of that sum in paying due-bills bought at one-third and less [their face value], as I have said above. The employees of the accountancy have assured me that five hundred thousand pesos were paid in that way last year, and that fact is very well known. It is also known that the due-bills outstanding have been exhausted, so that now they are being sought very anxiously in the same districts, but cannot be found.
Although we generally have six or seven months’ sure notice from Xapon before the coming of the enemy, that they are going to come, the governor makes no preparation, small or large, nor does he build any vessels, but allows the time to pass as if he had no such warning. When the enemy arrive at the coast, the governor, without any intention of going to meet them—as is known publicly and generally, and is known by the results, as he has already spent the money—lays hands on the inhabitants and mainly by force gets a loan of one hundred thousand pesos from them, or what he thinks best, and has the ships in the port repaired. Those vessels often do not exceed three, and he spends on them a vast sum of ducados, even loading them with food and war-supplies of all that is needed. He troubles the soldiers in making them go and come to and from Cavite, and even making them embark. He says with show of great courage that he is going out, although he is told that such a thing is impossible with the ships that he has, for the enemy have many. Having spent all the money and exhausted the miserable inhabitants whom he has thus burdened, he calls a council at this juncture, and asks whether it is advisable to go out. Since the enemy are so superior they cannot tell him to go out, and in addition they see little gain in it; accordingly it is resolved that it is not advisable to go out. Your Majesty’s royal treasury thus remains depleted, and the enemy are left to pillage the vessels that they seize from those who come to this city, especially those from China. It is even asserted, although I do not know whether it is true, that he makes underhanded efforts in the midst of all these braveries, by the hands of certain persons who are masters of his secrets, so that the city may come out and disapprove of, and protest against, his going [against the enemy], and may inform many of the council of the danger if they should say that he should go out. And it is said that thus, in the matters above related and in many things left unsaid, the governor wastes his time—which he ought to spend in pleasing God our Lord, and in imploring His mercy, so that He might aid us in the conservation of the country, in succeeding in serving our king, and in preparing matters for his royal service—in many feasts and games, parties, weddings, christenings, and entertainments with women, even while the enemy are along the coasts, and often even anchored inside the bay; for I believe, and it is understood, that the Japanese inform the enemy of the slight preparations of the country. As a result, the governor has acquired a wretched reputation and character, even among the Chinese Sangleys and the Japanese of the country (who are infidels), not only for sensuality and lasciviousness, but for other and worse doings. We have the country in the most wretched condition that can be imagined. Never has it been so wretched, as is affirmed openly by the oldest residents here, as well as by me. They bewail Don Juan de Silva, for, although they say that he was covetous and revengeful, yet he was moderate in these faults; besides, he was prudent, and watchful of your Majesty’s service, and of the preservation [of the country] and credit in war, and of the honor of your Spanish nation. Many of them fear, and I with them, some great chastisement from heaven, because of the publicity and multitude of the sins of us who live here.
In the particulars of the above matters [your Majesty’s revenues] have been and are being wasted during the time of this government, and I fear greatly that it will continue in the same way until the end of it; and I do not know that it can become worse. For I assure your Majesty that I am talking with some caution, although I could enlarge on this subject—because when I talk with my king, I am talking with God, for the satisfaction and security of my conscience; and because from my entrance into this Audiencia, I thought that I would not be fulfilling my obligations unless I endeavored to do my duty in what concerns me, and in the rest what I could, so that the service of God our Lord and that of your Majesty might be furthered. I thought that if evil beginnings be looked on with fear they could not increase. I always endeavored to furnish a good example in the matter of any actions and life, and at the same time to persuade and advise the governor of what I deemed worthy of reform, so that reason and not inclination might rule. I avoided conforming to his will in all things that came to my hands by reason of my office which were not to the service of your Majesty. By deed, example, and advice, or at least by efficient warnings, I exerted myself, so that only your Majesty’s service should be striven for, and I am persevering in this course. I desire and am endeavoring to be on my guard respecting matters which concern his inclination and not his reason. For in fact, although the governor has done what he wished in many things, because he does not know how to conduct negotiations otherwise, at least he did not so act with me; and because of me and the openness of my nature, he ceased to attempt and to do other things—I persevering in my purpose, and he in his; and, although disabusing his mind of the idea that I would surrender myself to an evil thing, humoring him and giving him pleasure in all that I could freely. Inasmuch as that was so little and the matter of justice so great, because your Majesty’s royal treasury and other most important things enter into it, he readily abandoned the path of perverting me. He said, with promises, that he would esteem my compliance more highly than that of all others, or than a great sum of money, besides other exaggerations (from which I think that he did not ill judge me), and changed the course that he had pursued by means of insults and injuries. [As an instance of the latter], after talking to me with his usual harshness while in his house—that which your Majesty assigns and gives to the president [of the Audiencia] by an order that you have given to the effect that there be houses for the president and auditors—one of the houses of one of the auditors having become vacant because Licentiate Alcaraz left it, the governor (although it pertained to me by my seniority, because Licentiate Legaspi already had a house) took it from me, moved into it, and left his own under pretext that he wished to demolish it, because it was falling down. He has lived in both houses (for one is near the other) for two years, although there have been most furious winds and storms, which makes his object evident. Besides, since your Majesty assigns a house to the president and auditors, if mine should collapse, I would rent a house which he could not seize afterward; and since by the mercy of God, I trust in His Divine Majesty, that all the world could not divorce me from the service of my king, I endured and concealed the annoyance of his having deprived me of my house. I think that the scope of his pretensions must have increased, and that, when I censured him more, he tried to drive me from the Audiencia by different methods that he attempted. One was to send me to inspect the country (where one goes mostly by sea, because of the multitude of the islands, the great distance, and the fact that the roads pass through the territory of the insurgent Indians) while the enemy was along the coast; yet an order was given to all the Spaniards who were living on their encomiendas, and others who are the chiefs—against whom, and not the poor common Indians, the inspection is aimed—to come to reside in this city because of the presence of the enemy. Besides, that inspection did not pertain to me, since I was neither the oldest nor the most recent auditor. Notwithstanding that the Audiencia resisted, saying that it was not advisable to make that visit then, he tried to have it done by his appointment alone, and without the concurrence of the Audiencia, having attempted to do that last year as well as at the present time. In order to constrain and annoy me more, he ordered me to go out in Holy Week, notwithstanding that I replied to him that I would go (although it did not pertain to me) if the Audiencia concurred in it, but that without that concurrence I could not go. In consequence, it appears that the governor desisted for the time, but did not abandon his project; on the contrary, he was more set on it. When the Christmas season came, the time for the distribution of offices, in accordance with your Majesty’s ordinances, that of probate judge fell to me in my turn. But this so annoyed him that he tried to avoid giving it, withholding the commission signed by the entire Audiencia, for more than two months, I believe, with a certain scandal to the city; for litigants did not know to what judge they could have recourse, as my predecessor’s time had expired. After he had delivered me the commission, when I commenced to exercise the office—with no greater pleasure than that of serving your Majesty, although others solicit those offices—the death of Licentiate Andres de Alcaraz happened, without his leaving a will. As judge, I set about collecting his property with much diligence, involving considerable hardship. That caused me certain fevers, for as he died in the country outside this city in a garden his property was in great peril. Of this I gave your Majesty an account after the property was collected and placed in order, with the precautions that I had taken—by which, notwithstanding the suits that had succeeded, I would continue to retain and reserve the property in case that your Majesty were pleased to send [some one to take] the said auditor’s inspection or residencia. In conformity with that I had sent documents both to the probate court of Mexico and to the House of Trade at Sevilla, so that the property that the said auditor possessed there might be collected, and that your Majesty might be advised. Finally, I continuing in my office and the governor in his purpose—which was stimulated by his inability to reduce me to what I can morally believe, besides the public rumor and report—and he being most desirous of taking from me my office of probate judge, especially after the property had been entered in the accounts of the probate court; and I had begun the administration of the property of Licentiate Andres de Alcaraz: for certain purposes, which I do not dare to state, although they are reported, for I do not dare believe them, still by this and by many other reasons, and more because he had seized certain of the letters that I have written to inform your Majesty (for which, as persons in his confidence assure me, with whom he has communicated the matter, he has felt, and still feels, special anger and fury against me), he resolved to remove me, even though it should be by arbitrary act, from the Audiencia. Of that I am morally persuaded, and it is well known. Seeking occasion for this, but not finding it, and wearied perhaps in waiting for it, it happened one session that, while Licentiate Legaspi and Don Juan de Valderrama, auditor and fiscal, were at the door of the hall of his house, a message came in which Don Antonio Rodriguez de Villegas excused himself on the grounds of ill health. As the governor never attends the sessions of the Audiencia except for his private ends, under pretext of your Majesty’s service, he was very angry that Don Antonio should excuse himself that day; for he was trying to secure the passage of a resolution [by the Audiencia] that I should go out to make the inspection—always persisting, as I have said, in his purpose; and also because it was understood that he had on his part managed to get the consent of Licentiate Legaspi to it. On hearing the message, he said very angrily that Don Antonio Rodriguez and I were always excusing ourselves from your Majesty’s service by feigning to be sick. [That he said] in the presence of many people who were there, besides other quite unreasonable language. For that reason I was forced to ask him why, if your Majesty gave credit to an auditor when he excused himself, did not he have to do the same, all this with the intention to calm and satisfy him. He abandoned himself to a flow of words, somewhat disconnected, to which I replied, saying that your Majesty did not order a president to treat the auditors so; and that I served your Majesty punctually, and did not excuse myself when I was well. If I remember correctly, I think that I made witnesses of all; for he also came to me after all that, and told me that I lied, and I think that he said “villain.” However, I do not believe that any besides Licentiate Legaspi and the fiscal heard that, And inasmuch as he told me to keep still and not reply, threatening me with execrations and oaths, I said to him with the greatest calmness, as is my custom: “If your Lordship tells us what is not so, are we not to remonstrate and answer you?” Thereupon he went to the meeting, where he told me that I was the worst Christian in the world, and that I took communion like Judas, besides other insults of like import, before Licentiate Legaspi and the fiscal. I was silent under everything, for I only told him that in the matter of sins I could confess many omissions; but I warned him that witnesses heard that, just as they had also heard at his house the other things that he said. Although he went ahead he may perhaps have thought that I persisted in silence, and did not answer him, in order that he might be led on to commit some imprudent act; thereupon he must have thought that there was now much to fear, and that he was not to find a justifiable opportunity, [for] he caught at that word, and said that I had intended to give him the lie, as if transgressions in thought were to be fought over—the more so, Sire, as I did not speak another word to him; for if I had spoken another word, I am not the man who would deny that to your Majesty or any one else. On account of that, the governor determined to make me the object of a lawsuit, and received his witnesses. To them he did not fail to tell what had happened, but not the words that I had spoken. When some wished to tell more, it is said that he insulted and threatened them. However, he did not do that with Licentiate Legaspi and Don Juan de Valderrama, the auditor and fiscal, whom he also received as witnesses, and whom I warned beforehand to give witness of everything that had passed; still, they said no more than what the governor wished, by which I am insulted, ashamed, and surprised beyond manner. Notwithstanding their great friendship with him, and that they know how to gratify him and be gratified by him (of which would to God there were not so much to murmur at in the community, because of the great aid they render him in ruining it), still I am consoled, and I praise God for everything. With this and, as has been declared publicly, with the advice of an advocate, to whom he gave an appointment so that he might be made judge of vagabonds—and who was, as is said, urged and even persuaded for it, that such action was not to arrest me, but only to intimidate me—the governor issued a warrant for arrest, and seized me. This was done while all the Audiencia was in a body, near the chapel where mass was being said, and about to go on general prison inspection, on Palm Saturday—although he had no sufficient reasons, as I told him so that he should not do it, as well as to the rest of the Audiencia so that they might discuss it. He sent me to the cabildo quarters, which are in the public prison, where he set over me seven soldiers of the guard and a corporal, with orders not to let me talk with any layman, especially any scrivener, and not to let me have paper and ink to write. Besides that guard, he set other soldiers in the street, so that I might not escape through the windows, as I believe. I am also told that the corporal had orders to kill me if I tried to escape, although I do not know what truth there is in that statement. But none of the orders given were more than oral, for the governor did not want them set on the records. Imprisoned in the above manner—on Palm Saturday, when [even] highwaymen are set free—he kept me prisoner during all of Holy Week and Easter, and two whole months—with the greatest scandal that, as I have heard, this community has ever had—until many religious, servants of God, and the archbishop, went to him to persuade him, and to undeceive him as to the gravity of the act that he had committed. But they obtained no beneficial result from it; on the contrary, considering as well founded the fears that they inspired in him, and thinking to justify his crime, he began to take a residencia of all my life. That lasted almost two months, and he summoned witnesses, and many of them, who told all that they knew about me. In order to persuade them to go into details, perhaps, as to what he desired, he proclaimed that I was not to be set free or to be an auditor any longer in the country; but that, on the contrary, he was going to place me aboard ship. By those efforts, and others—not only by demands on the one hand, but by fears that he inculcated through third parties, as has been told me, on the other—he obtained a great number of witnesses. However, he discharged many of these, in anger at them because they told him, with forcible arguments, that they were Christians, and that he should not involve them in matters with which they were unacquainted. Others of them, who tried to say, as was thought, many things that appeared to be in my favor, were not allowed to say these. All that took place under the efficient management of Pedro Muñoz, court scrivener of the Audiencia, with whom the governor was hand in glove, as I have said. For, in order to do it, I am told that he suppressed the heading of the process which he had before made on account of only that word, and substituted another in its place which comprehended in it scope all the discourses in the life of a man—so that it might not be understood, as I believe, that he had made so great a mistake at the beginning, and for other objects that the governor will know. Notwithstanding that, and his cruelty, violence, and force, and the fears of the witnesses, I trust in our Lord that He will not have permitted them to give false testimonies against me, although the outrageous manner in which the governor proceeds, and the so mortal fear that all have of him, makes that much to be dreaded. Finally, at the end of the two months of so serious and scandalous an imprisonment, our Lord was pleased to perform a miracle for me, through the intercession of the Virgin, our Lady, to whom I attribute it (and that miracle is not the first that she has performed for men as unworthy as I). It occurred thus: One day I dressed myself in my usual manner for going to the Audiencia; and at ten I went out among all the soldiers who were posted there, and went down the steps at my usual gait. In the same way, while in the prison, many people were round about, and in the public place where one goes out of the prison were many more; but I passed through the midst of them all to the college of Sancto Thomas. Next day I went thence to [the convent of] St. Dominic, which is on the other side of the wall, where I remain a refugee.[5] The convent is quite far from the prison, and no man spoke to me at all; on the contrary, those in the square accompanied me. Afterward the soldiers and guard (whom God was pleased to stop, I know not how) must have returned to their senses; and they came after me, when I was already near the church. Ascertaining what had happened, some went to the church, and the governor arrested others. He, as I have been told, ordered all the camp of soldiers called to arms, as if it were for the Dutch, with the intention, it is said, of taking me out by force, even if he should destroy the college. However, he restrained himself to sending two companies. It is even said, further, that all that day and night they surrounded the college, under orders not to allow entrance or exit to friar or anyone else, or the entrance of food, until the archbishop, at the instance of the friars, persuaded the governor to withdraw the soldiers. I consider as a miracle also what happened with him. Since I have been in [the convent of] St. Dominic, I have heard from several persons that the governor was quietly trying to have me killed by a certain agreement, which would have been very easy for him had not God prevented it. However, although that is not very well known, nor do I believe it all, yet it could be feared from him, and from his great desire to be free from my witnessing his acts on occasions of defending the justice and service of my king, since he could not reduce me to take a path contrary thereto. For that reason, I have tried with peculiar care to have God’s zealous servants commend him to God, and petition Him for the governor’s reformation and prudent action, so that he may not fall into the deeper abyss of miseries. Then the governor ordered my property to be sequestered, and they went to my house and took an inventory of all my books and the other treasures that I possessed, even to the very clothes of my wife, and my salaries—just as if I were a private citizen and not next [in authority] to your Majesty and the royal council, as I am; as if I had committed some crime, and he had authority to proceed against and punish me, he saying that he is the aggrieved and proper party; and as if, besides, he could be judge with so great violence. He had me summoned by edicts and proclaimed through the public streets, an action that has scandalized this community. But, notwithstanding his hostile demonstrations, he cannot satisfy himself, for all of which I have tried to give many thanks to God, considering that I am suffering thus for [the sake of] justice, and for defending the service of God and of my king. In regard to that it must be considered that, although all those lawless acts, insults, and violences to the private person of Don Alvaro de Messa I consider as referred to God, nevertheless it is a serious and intolerable matter to persecute a minister for being loyal to his king. For the sake of the respect and royal authority of your Majesty which is so offended by those qualities in your minister, on account of the public scandal, and for the conservation of justice and the security of the country, and in order to avoid disservice to God and your Majesty—all which is attained by the punishment of the guilty, by which the good would be encouraged and those who are not good would fear—an exemplary punishment seems very necessary for the governor, and for me a reward and honor for the affronts and hardships that I have suffered, especially in this country, where, because of the absolute procedure of the governor, no attention is paid to your Majesty’s royal orders, and one trembles to displease the governor, without more reason than that the latter desires such and such a thing. And because for many years this has continued to increase, very justly may one fear that, if it be not punished, it may reach such a point that the remedy will be difficult and ever miraculous. To moderate the enormity of the circumstances of my imprisonment and the grave scandal existing hitherto throughout the community (and I think that it will exist until satisfaction can be made for it), his guardian angels—one of whom is Don Juan de Alvarado, who has been fiscal and whom your Majesty ordered to be banished hence; and who was irritated because I had not cloaked his residencia, about which I am writing your Majesty in a separate letter—and others who are of the same sort, advised the governor to make use of an ordinance which is one of those of this Audiencia, never used and not even remembered for a long time, and which is as follows:
”Item: I order that my president of the said Audiencia try the criminal causes of its auditors, together with the alcaldes-in-ordinary, notwithstanding the ordinance that rules the contrary.”[6] He availed himself of this to summon the alcaldes-in-ordinary and to cause them to sign all that he decreed, for they were present at nothing else than the signing of what he was violating—both with witnesses and without them, when they were not persons who were mere creatures of his; for, when persons are elected into the cabildo, nothing but what the governor wishes is voted. Further than this, if they were persons of greater obligations, and more exemplary in life and conscience, I think that they would do the same, although it might even be in a matter of greater weight; for, as I have told your Majesty, the more than violence and force that the governor holds over their minds and wills is incredible, although evident. Not all dare to resist at the peril of their security and life, and of being imprisoned, as I was, for the service of your Majesty. They, hastily judging, differentiate between the future hurt, which may not come to them, and the punishment which they regard as a present hurt, namely, to suffer for God and their king. Besides, as they also are in the deal, they have their advantages, by which they are all blinded. For to whoever can see, and to him who desires the light of heaven that he may succeed, not only is the ordinance not obscure, as they say, but quite clear, since it does not give authority or contain words for arrest or process; nor does it in any way alter the law. Therefore, those nearest [to your Majesty], as are the auditors, cannot be imprisoned or proceeded against except by your Majesty or the royal Council, or by your order. Nevertheless, the president, in virtue of his superintendency over the Audiencia, may ordain to the auditors what may be just and reasonable in matters that pertain to the government and its conservation; and even, in the heated arguments that are wont to arise between the auditors, has authority, in case the nature of the affair might require it, to retire each auditor to his own house, until they make up the quarrel; and, should he deem it advisable, he may inform your Majesty. For the ordinance does not say that the president and alcaldes shall proceed, arrest, sentence, and execute justice in criminal causes affecting the auditors. All that, in my opinion, was meant to amend the express privilege of law as contained substantially in the corpus juris [civilis];[7] and even then serious causes would have to be understood by criminal causes; ultra multa cum tiberº farsnaci e regni col. 9, ttº 4, pº. 3.[8] But it says only that the governor shall try criminal causes, which means that, in crimes that are not such by reason of the office, but personal and serious crimes of the auditors, he shall investigate, together with the alcaldes, and advise your Majesty; and the word “try,” instead of meaning to arrest and execute justice and other equivalent things, only denotes simple jurisdiction which belongs to civil cases, and not authority, either pure or mixed.[9] Otherwise your Majesty could avoid the visits and residencia which you send to the Audiencia. Accordingly, to try criminal cases means that they be treated civilly without allowing them to be [cases for either] pure or mixed authority, by arresting or proceeding; but only to investigate and advise your Majesty, except in capital causes that have the capital penalty. In such cases it would be advisable for the Audiencia, and even for the president alone, to secure the criminals, if they should be auditors and nearest [to the king], but not by virtue of the ordinance, but by virtue of the ordinary authority of law, and the privileges of public protection—citing [the paragraph] ne delicta, etc., in case that it was unable, because of the crime and the person, to be secure in any other way than by imprisonment which befits the crime, and in accordance with the teaching of the law divi fratres f fin ff de poen.[10] Therefore the Audiencia ought to arrest the governor for four murders that he has lately committed (and which will be told later), solely to assure and advise your Majesty, with judicial consideration, so that you might decree your pleasure in respect to his person. But [they ought] to punish his accomplices, who were numerous, and who are not near [to the king], but most of them men who, without that crime, deserve to be severely punished for others; but they are all passed by, in virtue of peace and harmony, by Licentiate Hieronimo de Legaspi and Don Juan de Valderrama, the auditor and fiscal, who are on good terms with the governor. [Indeed, these men] now constitute the Audiencia, because Don Antonio Rodriguez has retired to his house, and is sick because of the insults cast upon him by the governor at a meeting (which I shall relate later); while I was arrested when it happened, and am now in refuge in the sanctuary. In order that all that may be done well, the governor arrests me and insults me—although, I am, by the mercy of God, guiltless of any crime, capital, moderate, or the least, and even without the slightest dispute in the Audiencia; but only because my character and the obligations of my conscience do not allow me to lack one jot in my service to my king—under pretext that by not consenting to the things that the governor imputed to me, I told him that what he was saying to me was not so. Had I shown any want of prudence in my defense—which I could have done, and which I think another would have done, who would not have endured it as did I—I would have been excused, and he would have been guilty in making himself the judge of his own cause—the more, as there was no fault or injury; or, even if there were any, it was not to the tribunal or to his dignity. I do not know, Sire, [of a case] even with full authority from your Majesty in regard to visit and residencia, when one has ever seen an auditor arrested and proclaimed, even though he had committed many serious crimes; and when, as has been told me, they shuddered with horror at the men who did it. However, I would better leave this matter now, and put a stop to this particular, rather reproaching myself at having digressed to discuss these private details (although with so great limitation), since I am talking with so exalted a tribunal, and to so many grandees and to so gifted men. For that reason, I do not dare allege rights or continue, but only to petition your Majesty to be pleased to have your royal provision issued with the gravest penalties (nevertheless, I fear that those penalties will not be sufficient, from what I know and what the community knows of the governor), so that the governor may release me; and ordering him not to molest me with any processes or causes whatsoever, so that I may attend to the affairs of my office as auditor, freely, as well as to those which your Majesty has assigned to me. [I also ask] that the royal officials pay me all my salaries,[11] for the time while the governor has prevented and kept me by force from exercising my office; that the governor restore to me my property that he has sequestered; that, if it be sold, I be paid for it; that the governor leave my house that he has occupied for two years, pay me the rent for it, and go to his own house, since your Majesty has assigned it to me and the other to him; and that, if the governor should have drawn up any acts, they be sent to the Council immediately. For I have not been able to get them from him, nor is there any one who can get any testimonial from him of anything. On the contrary the governor has, since I have been in [the convent of] St. Dominic, seized certain petitions presented in the Audiencia before Licentiate Legaspi, who is there alone, a thing which before could not have been possible; and has refused to return them under any circumstances, in accordance with his usual custom in such things. I trust, God helping, that if the governor sends the testimonies by themselves alone; without considering his own inability to do it, his violence, and the judicial substance, your Majesty, if so pleased, will find in them a disposition to punish him severely, and to condemn him and the alcaldes; and to order me to be paid many damages and costs which have been imposed on me, rewarding me and granting me great favors and honor. For without any other investigation or information from me, or from others, I think that you will see very clearly the reasons and objects that, as I have said, have moved the governor to commit so atrocious an act as he did in my imprisonment. However, it is also well known that the following reasons have influenced him.