. 145, note 44.

[84] _Recopilacion de leyes_ contains the following law in regard to
the rations of rice: "Inasmuch as the presidents and auditors of the
Audiencia of the Filipinas Islands, and the officials of our royal
treasury are accustomed to divide among themselves all the tributes of
rice belonging to us in La Pampanga for the expense of their houses,
taking it at the price at which the tributarios give it at the harvest,
whence it happens that the rations given on our account are lacking,
and that they must be bought at excessive rates; and as such procedure
is very prejudicial to our royal treasury: therefore we order the
president and royal officials to avoid it and stop so pernicious a
custom, for thus is it advisable for our royal service." [Felipe III,
Madrid, December 19, 1618 --lib. ii, tit. xvi, ley lxxii.]

[85] The following document, preserved in Archivo general de Indias
with the same pressmark as Fajardo's letter (see Bibliographical Data,
_post_), was probably ordered to be copied as a help toward solving
these doubts.

The King: To the president and auditors of my royal Audiencia of the
Filipinas Islands. I have heard that, [the command of] a company of
infantry having become vacant because of the death of Don Tomas Brabo,
and my governor and captain-general of those islands, Don Pedro de
Acuna, having appointed to it Captain Juan de Billacon--who in order
that he would accept had to be urged by the said Don Pedro, both
because he was a very worthy and deserving man and one who had done
many services, and because there was no one else to select, and because
it was an occasion when a great number of boats were expected from
China which it had been rumored were to come to attack the islands,
to revenge the Sangleys who had been killed in the insurrection of the
year six hundred and three--you issued an act, in which you ordered
that the said governor should appoint the said company in conformity to
the ordinance, and that in the meantime there should be no innovation
in anything--just as if such a matter were the chief that should be
attended to then, since it was an occasion in which the governor was
toiling so arduously in fortifying districts and strongholds of those
islands, raising ramparts, and making ditches in order to be as ready
as possible for the awaiting of so great a multitude of men as rumor
said were to attack those islands. Inasmuch as it is proper that
matters pertaining to war