o Salamanca, who gave sentence in favor of the fathers
of the Society. That sentence was appealed to the royal Audiencia,
and although Don Juan Cereso judged, and rightly, that there was in
this matter no appeal to the Audiencia, as it was purely a point of
government, he did not dare to prevent the appeal, but allowed it
to pass. Upon my arrival at this island, I found this suit in the
stage of petition; and, esteeming it to belong to the government,
I suspended the suit, and ordered that the sentence and decree of
Don Juan Nino de Tabora be carried out. The fathers of St. Dominic
were angry at that, but surely without any reason, as it was none
of their business--although they had so possessed themselves of
the communal fund of the Parian, and so controlled it, that in the
fourteen years since it was established, they have used it to get
more than one hundred thousand pesos from it for matters peculiar
to their order. That has been an excess and irregularity that the
governors should not have allowed, as is apparent from the accounts
which I ordered the accountant Juan Bautista de Cubiaga to audit on
this occasion. The Sangleys of Santa Cruz and of the jurisdiction
of Tondo, seeing how small was the benefit that they derived from
the communal fund of the Parian, and that it was converted only
to the welfare of the Sangleys of the Parian and of the fathers of
St. Dominic, petitioned me to be allowed to have a separate communal
fund in Tondo. Considering that they were asking for justice, for Don
Alonso Faxardo, who established the said fund, declared May 4, 1622,
that whenever the said Sangleys thought that they could not endure
the said fund, and whenever they should oppose it and petition that it
be not continued or kept up, it would be proper to have it cease--in
conformity with that, I, seeing that a number of the Sangleys of the
villages of Santa Cruz and Tondo were opposing (and rightfully, as
the fund of the Parian was of no use to them) the payment by them,
as by the others, of three tostons annually for each person, and
that they were asking for a separate fund for Tondo, which should
be entrusted to the alcalde-mayor, I granted it to them. I was also
influenced by the service which the Sangleys of Santa Cruz offered
to perform for your Majesty, as I shall immediately relate--namely,
that the alcalde-mayor of Tondo should be paid from this fund, and
thus the salary paid him from the royal treasury would be save