“Ordinance 67. Item: My president shall, together with two auditors [oidores], audit the accounts, at the beginning of each year, of the royal officials who shall have had charge of my royal treasury for the past year. They shall conclude it within the months of January and February; and when they are completed, a copy of them shall be sent to my Council of the Indias. I order that if the said two months pass, without the said accounts being completed, the officials of my royal treasury shall receive no salary until they shall be concluded. Each of the auditors who shall be present at the auditing of the said accounts shall have a gratification of twenty-five thousand maravedis, provided that that salary or gratification be not given them—and it shall not be given them—except for the year for which they shall send the said accounts concluded to my royal Council of the Indias.”
“Ordinance 69. Item: I order that when my president and auditors commence to audit the accounts of my royal estate, in accordance with the provision in regard to it, they shall go first of all to my royal treasury, and weigh and count the gold and silver and the other things that may be there, and take account of it [In the margin: “Sic.”]. Then they shall begin the accounts, and, having finished them, shall collect the balance within the time ordered by the said decree. [In the margin: “I do not find any account, in the records of the visit, of this provision which is cited.”] The amount collected shall be placed in the chest with three keys; and orders shall be given that the balance from the past year shall not be made up from what shall be collected during the time in which the accounts shall be audited.”
“Ordinance 90. Item: The said fiscal shall be at all the meetings which shall be held outside the ordinary Audiencia by the president and auditors, whether of justice or pertaining to my royal estate, with the officials of it, either for matters of government, or in any other manner.”
Book 7, folio 239. In a royal decree of January 25, 605, directed to the royal officials of the said islands with the ordinances of their offices, the two following touch on this matter:
“Ordinance 29. The accounts that you shall be obliged to give of what is in your charge during the administration of your offices, shall be given annually in the accustomed manner. For that purpose, you shall deliver as an inventory to the person who shall audit them, all the books and vouchers pertaining to them, and those that shall be requested from you, and that shall be necessary for the clear understanding of the accounts. You shall continue the administration of your offices with other similar and new books. The accounts shall be balanced in the presence of my governor, and of an auditor of my royal Audiencia who shall be appointed by the governor and the fiscal of the Audiencia. Should any doubts and additions result from the said accounts, the said my governor and auditor shall adjust and decide them, so that they may be balanced and completed.”[2]
“Ordinance 42. You shall send annually the final account of the receipts and expenditures of my royal estate, declaring the same in its distinct heads. In case that an auditor of accounts appointed by the said my governor shall audit your accounts, he shall be obliged to have them made out in accordance with the aforesaid, for the said end.”
Book 7, folio 2. August 24 of the same year 605, his Majesty despatched a royal decree, ordering three tribunals of the exchequer to be established in the three cities of Lima, Santa Fe [de Bogota], and Mexico, so that the accounts of all the provinces of their [respective] districts might be audited in each one. Its beginning is as follows:
“Don Felipe, etc.: Inasmuch as the accounts of the income and duties that belong to us and which we are to receive in our kingdoms and provinces of our Western Indias, as king and seignior of them, have been and are audited by the persons who have been and are appointed for it by our viceroys and presidents of the audiencias of the said our Indias, and by the corregidors and governors of some districts of them, who have been and are appointed for it; and inasmuch as they are sent to our royal Council of the Indias, so that they may be reviewed and examined therein; and inasmuch as the persons who audit the said accounts do not possess the skill and experience that is required for such an employment, and the accounts, as they are not furnished every year, do not show the accuracy, clearness, and distinctness that is necessary—whence have resulted many disadvantages and losses to our royal estate, as has been shown by experience: in order that such may cease now and henceforth, and the necessary precaution be exercised in everything, we have decided, after conference, examination, and discussion of the matter in our royal Council of the Indias, and in other meetings of ministers of great intelligence and long experience, that there shall be, and shall be established tribunals of the auditors of accounts who live and reside ordinarily in the said our province, so that they may audit the accounts of whatever pertains to us in any way, or that may pertain in the future to all or any persons into whose possession has entered or shall enter any of our possessions, of which they must and shall inform us. In order that this may be done as is fitting to our service, we have decided, and we will and command, that the following order and form be kept and observed.”
The said decree proceeds, by ordering in its first section that the said three tribunals be founded, in each of which there shall be three auditors [contadores], who are to be called and styled “auditors of accounts.” They shall attend to their business by virtue of letters and warrants sealed with the royal seal. Each tribunal shall also have two officers known as “arrangers of accounts” [ordenadores de cuentas] and other things that pertain to this. The following declaration occurs in section twenty-two:
“Furthermore, the said our auditors of accounts shall audit and conclude the final account of the said our royal officials and treasury of the said our Yndias for the preceding year, in the year immediately following, without protracting or extending it under any considerations—except that of our royal officials of the province of Chile, and of the persons into whose possession enters the money which we order to be supplied from Piru for the expenses that must be incurred there; and that of the Filipinas Islands, which, as they are so remote and out of the way, must be audited every two years. All the said our officials of the said our royal treasuries in the said our Western Yndias shall be obliged to go, or to send persons with their powers of attorney and adequate documents, to render their accounts before the said our auditors of accounts.”