t that there should be an Audiencia in the
Philipinas.

Sire:

For a long time I have been reflecting upon the matter which I shall
here mention, and many times I have resolved to give your Majesty
an account of it, and of others as important. I have been kept back
and restrained, by fear that it might or could be suspected that
I was moved by some personal interest or passion; but owing to the
difficulties which have confronted me in one way and another, having
consulted and conferred with serious religious and other persons,
both ecclesiastical and lay, who look at the matter dispassionately
[_MS. defective_] resolved not to delay any longer, for it appeared
to me that otherwise I did not act in accordance with the obligations
of my office, or the favor which your Majesty has done me by putting
me in this position.

Your Majesty has a royal Audiencia in these island with four auditors,
one fiscal, and other officers, whereby your Majesty spends each
year sixteen thousand five hundred pesos. It seems that this might
be dispensed with for the reasons set forth in the paper which goes
with this, and to which I refer, only adding (what I may say in all
truth) that, although this commonwealth is in the greatest trouble,
through the many causes of death, wars, conflagrations, afflictions,
shipwrecks, and the destruction of so much property, as your Majesty
has learned, there is nothing which it feels more keenly today, or
which afflicts it more, than to have the Audiencia here judging, and
with it to lack all freedom of person or property. The name of auditor
is so odious here that it alone offends; and we have come to such a
state of affairs that because I, in conformity to what your Majesty
has ordered, have attempted to maintain and have maintained amicable
relations with the auditors; and have shown, on various occasions,
more patience and endurance than the people considered right; and
more than seemed fitting to my situation, in order not to give rise
to scandal: some have conceived hatred for me, publicly saying that,
to comply with the expenditures and opinions of the said auditors,
I was neglecting to look after them, and that I could correct the
evil which the Audiencia was doing. But as I cannot do that, it has
seemed to me the best means to let the public see that there was good
feeling between me and the Audiencia, and to give an account to your
Majesty now of the reasons which lead me to this conclusion, i