Majesty has given
to this office. Many of them I must swallow, in order not to fail in
the affairs of your Majesty's service--which could not be conducted
as their importance demands and compels, if one were to give much
attention to these matters which concern personal grudges. For if
one did that, he could necessarily attend to nothing else, because
as the auditors here have few important matters that oblige them to
close application, they must apply the greater part of their time to
devising petty tricks on the president in order to vex and weary him,
until [as they hope], not only will he allow them to live according to
their own inclination, but also their relatives and followers shall,
in whatever posts they desire, be employed and profited. And since
harmony has never been seen here without this expedient, one would
think it easy to believe such a supposition. Regarding what your
Majesty writes in this matter of posts being given to the relatives
or followers of the auditors, there is not much to amend. Perhaps
that is the reason that some are ill satisfied and to such an extent
that they show it not only by inflicting annoyances on the persons
who aid me in the obligations of my office and in your Majesty's
service--because they know that I esteem such men for that reason,
and see our gratefulness for it--but in doing whatever can cause
injury, and also in any acts of discourtesy, which are much to be
regretted. Such has been the demonstration that they made by public
act when, the chairs of this Audiencia having been carried in order to
go to one of the sermons and festivals to which they go here; and the
chair of my wife, Dona Catherina Maria Cambrana y Fajardo, having been
placed behind them--just as is the custom in other places, and as was
continued here, without exceeding in anything what is permitted to the
wife of a president--the auditors voted that my wife's chair should
be placed outside, or that they would not take theirs, as did Doctor
Don Alonso de Mesa and Doctor Don Antonio Rodriguez. It is a matter
whose telling even causes me shame. Were it the resentment and sorrow
of another, I could set it right, by the mildest and most advisable
method possible. But as it is my own affair, and a matter akin to
vanity (from which I believe myself quite free)--for when I have
finished the public acts of pomp and display in my office, I return
to that of sailor, which is the chief thing of this government--I