Sire:
The archbishop of these islands presented a petition in this royal Audiencia, in which he requested that depositions be accepted for him, by order and officially, in which he claims that your Majesty conceded to him an increase of his salary of three thousand Castilian ducados per year, in order that he may be able to support himself for the reasons that he alleges. Having officially received the depositions, what seems to have resulted from it, in brief, is that if the archbishop would regulate himself in the ostentation and authority that he exercises in imitation of others, his predecessors, he could live on his salary of three thousand ducados. Nevertheless they [i.e., those making depositions] consider the said ostentation and authority as suitable to what is due the archiepiscopal dignity; and that, in order to sustain that dignity that he exercises and enjoys, an increase of his salary will be necessary, because the prices of articles for the sustenance of human life have increased, as appears by the said deposition, which, if your Majesty please, you will order to be examined.
On considering the above and other reasons of your Majesty’s service, this Audiencia believes that, if your Majesty wish, you may avoid the increase of the said salary. May God preserve the Catholic person of your Majesty. August 14, 622.
Licentiate Don Alvaro Messa y Lugo
Licentiate Don Juan de Saavedra Valderrama
[Endorsed: “The Audiencia of Manila in regard to the pretensions of the archbishop of that island.”]
For the same reasons that move the Audiencia to present information that it will be just to increase the salary of the prebendaries of this church, the governor thinks it proper to increase that of the archbishop to the sum that your Majesty may be pleased; and not in the last place, since his obligations are in the first place.
[1] In the original, the order of these two letters is the reverse of that given here. Although the letter presented here first is undated, sufficient internal evidence attests that its date is earlier than the other letter, and that it is the duplicate of a letter sent by the ships of an earlier year.