In respect to my report, Sire, I declare that the three per cent which has been collected hitherto, has entered into this royal treasury, and has never been reckoned with the situado. The same will have to be done with this two per cent, for it is all needed for the ordinary support, unless that your Majesty should be better served [by ordering otherwise].
The visitor at his departure gave me an account of all that he had done during the two years while he has been occupied in his visit. According to the report which he gave me of accounts which had been settled, I learned that this treasury was clear of debt, and had much money besides. But I have found by experience since then that, although in appearance he stirred up affairs, in fact the expense was greater than the gain. For most of the settlements of which he made a parade are in litigation, and are being nullified by the acquittal of the parties [in the suit], while others in the Audiencia are even abandoned; and few reach the point of collecting [the amounts due]. Some of the new ordinances that he left suffered the same misfortune, because he did not dictate them or draw them up, but entrusted them to two clerks before his visit—for his poor health did not permit him to do more. It is not to be believed that a well-informed lawyer would try to obstruct the service of your Majesty, for nearly all his ordinances are directed to and reflect distrust of the fidelity of the royal officials, to whom your Majesty has hitherto entrusted your revenues. From the good disposition that I observe in them and the work that they do, I judge them to be your very good and faithful servants.
It is advisable that your Majesty be pleased to send an accountant for settling accounts, and that he be a person of authority, with adequate pay. He who serves in that office in the meanwhile was formerly the servant of one of these auditors; and he is more concerned in occupying his time in sustaining friendships than in attending to what is necessary. On that account if some of the new ordinances were to be remade, this would be bettered.
I received some decrees in these last ships, which were despatched in the year thirty-two, and others of the year thirty-three, concerning the treasury, which are obeyed and will be carried out as is therein contained. When these ships set sail—and that has not been done before as the decrees were received late, and by way of India—I shall give an account of the condition of these matters.
The viceroy of Nueva España has sent me four companies as a reënforcement, and this camp has six others. I have reorganized five, so that there are now six companies in this city, each with more than one hundred soldiers, which is the least number that a company generally has.
Since the month of August of last year, when I began to govern these islands, the half-annats[1] have been collected with the care ordered by your Majesty, in which I coöperated with the commissary for that tax. The royal officials and the auditor who was appointed commissary are doing as they should.
In the ships of last year, and by way of Yndia, I informed your Majesty how expedient it was to charge five per cent duty on the silver and reals that are sent annually from Nueva España, as no remedy has been found whereby that commerce can be adjusted to the permission of only five hundred thousand pesos, which your Majesty has conceded to these islands. Past times can ill be compared with the present; and granting the accidents which oblige the viceroys of Nueva España not to practice the rigor which they themselves make the governors of Philipinas overlook, and considering the present thing, and watching out for the greater service of your Majesty, I am grieved because the royal officials of the ships enjoy this advantage—which as I have seen, amounts to more than one hundred thousand pesos per year—and, notwithstanding this new tax, the inconvenience of the quantities of money passing from those regions will increase; for it is most certain that those to whom belongs the trade of Philipinas always find a way by which to attain their objects; and because the viceroy of Mexico undertook to check it this year, by only threats, the inhabitants of these islands are ruined and left without their capital, which remained in Nueva España. May our Lord preserve and prosper the royal person of your Majesty, as we your vassals desire and need. Manila, August 10, 1634.
Don Juan Cerezo Salamanca
Government affairs
Sire: