er,
as he said, to avoid misfortune. For this reason, your royal treasury
lost one thousand five hundred pesos. To remedy this, and to increase
your royal exchequer, it is most important for your Majesty to command
that the said general decree directed to the viceroy of Nueva Espana
in the year eighty-one, [17] which treats of the sale and renunciation
of offices, be observed in these islands. Its fulfilment should be
enforced by your president and auditors; and, when a vacancy occurs
in any office, the said office should be sold, in order that your
royal treasury may have some relief. If it is not thus commanded,
the governors will exercise the privilege of providing offices.

Last year I reported to your Majesty that, because of the death of
Dona Ana de Palacios, there had been left vacant an encomienda owned
by her in Camarines. Petition had been made to your governor that
it be placed to the account of your royal crown, in virtue of your
Majesty's royal decree; and that twelve thousand pesos of income should
be paid to this royal Audiencia. But because Captain Joan Maldonado
presented another decree in which your Majesty commands that there
be given him two thousand pesos of income from unallotted Indians,
on account of his many services and extreme poverty, part of the
said encomienda was given him; while to your royal crown there was
assigned the other part, amounting to eleven hundred Indians, more or
less. Moreover, at the end of December of the past year, eighty-eight,
the encomienda owned by Don Luis de Sagajosa at Ylocos was left vacant
by his death. I petitioned your governor to place it to the account
of your royal crown, in compliance with the said royal decree. He
declared that it could not be allotted to the crown, but that it would
remain vacant, and the income would be assigned to your royal treasury
as royal property, until your Majesty should command otherwise. Less
than seven hundred Indians of this encomienda were apportioned to your
royal crown, in order that the income therefrom should be enjoyed by
the hospital. Appeal from this was made to the Audiencia, and the case
was continued. The result thereof was that another decree was issued
by your Majesty to the Augustinian friars, in which your Majesty
granted them a gift and alms of ten thousand ducats, payable within
ten years in unassigned Indians. In consideration of their poverty,
I consented that from the income of this encomienda there shoul