Later, at the end of the visit in the year 633, the said visitor gave the said Juan Baptista de Zubiaga the title of “auditor of accounts and results” [resultas] with a salary of 1,000 ducados per annum, increasing his salary [In the margin: “Memorial, folio 266”] because of the extra work which he would have in collecting [the amounts due from] the results [resultas] which remained drawn in his possession. He was to get a confirmation from your Majesty for the increase, namely, from the 1,000 pesos which he received before to the 1,000 ducados assigned to him by the visitor, within six years. Besides the above, he was to have two clerks to assist him and commission to audit all the accounts, both general and private, pertaining to the royal estate. [In the margin: “The title is to be found in the collection of papers for the claim of this man in regard to the confirmation.”]
He made rules in regard to its execution, and ordered them to be obeyed and observed, and to be inscribed in the royal books for that purpose. Although the royal officials were opposed to both things, the visitor ordered them to obey the enactment. Because the said royal officials refused to inscribe the said ordinances in the royal books, he fined them five hundred ducados apiece, which remained in the royal treasury. He had those ordinances inscribed in the books, getting the books for that purpose from the royal treasury, for the royal officials refused to do it [In the margin: “Memorial, folio 266”]. In the report made for your Majesty by the said visitor in the year 634, regarding the visit, he states that he thinks that those islands have the greatest need of a tribunal of the bureau of accounts, so that the accounts of the royal treasury may be audited there annually for the preceding year, and results made of all for which warrants have been improperly issued, and that has failed to be collected, thus avoiding the delays which have occurred hitherto. It is very necessary to have not only the said auditor of accounts appointed by him in the said bureau of accounts, but also a greater force of men and more authority in the said bureau of accounts. If that course had been pursued hitherto, it is undeniable that so great a quantity of funds would not have been badly administered, lost, and uncollectible. In his opinion, those islands have much greater need of a tribunal or a bureau of accounts than of an Audiencia, president, and auditors [oidores].
By a certification given by the said auditor of accounts and of the visit, Juan Baptista Zubiaga, it appears that the results [resultas] drawn up against the royal officials and other private persons during the visit amounted to six hundred and ninety-five thousand and sixty pesos.
The governor of Filipinas, in a letter written to your Majesty August 10, 634,[4] declares that it will be advisable that your Majesty be pleased to send an auditor of accounts, and that such auditor should be a person of authority, who shall receive an adequate salary; and states that he who is holding that office ad interim was a servant of one of the auditors [oidores] of those islands, and thinks more of spending his time in maintaining his friendships than in attending to what is necessary. He thinks that with the above appointment, and the correction of some recent ordinances, the condition of affairs would be improved.
A report made from the secretary’s office having been examined in the Council on September 26, 635, regarding what appeared to be there on this matter, it was ordered that your fiscal should examine it; and that, after also examining what advices had been received concerning it and the letters of the visitor, he should inform the Council in regard to it all. The said your fiscal declared that the ordinances and papers sent by the royal officials had come without authentication; and therefore, until they should come with that requisite, he had nothing to say.
This defect no longer operates, for the above-mentioned ordinances have arrived duly authenticated, in the body of the [records of the] visit; and the officials, in a letter in which they set forth the objections to those ordinances, have sent some authenticated papers for the proof of their statements.
On February 20, 637, the papers on the matter having been examined in the Council, it was ordered that they be taken to your fiscal, with the rest of the papers concerning the visit that touch the royal estates and its accounts—so that, upon receiving his statement, the advisable decision may be made as to whether it is best to send an auditor of accounts to Filipinas, or not. It does not appear that the said your fiscal has as yet answered. This is the condition that appears from the above-cited records; and your Majesty will ordain the measures that seem best to you.
[1] Arts. 67 and 69, here cited, are respectively 60 and 62 in the original document (May 5, 1583) founding the Audiencia at Manila—for which see vol. v of this series, pp. 294, 295; cf. duties of fiscal, p. 302. These differences of numbering, and some additional matter in No. 67, show that considerable additions to the old decree were required at the reëstablishment of the Audiencia.
[2] This ordinance is contained in the first part of ley x, titulo xxix, libro viii, of the Recopilación de leyes. See Vol. XVI of this series, p. 193, note 251.