ony of
an eye-witness, to the Council of the Indias. Your Majesty provides
and commands by this decree that I shall take the place belonging to
me. This order means that I take the same place which I took then,
as that is the proper place belonging to a bishop, without giving
any cause whatever for the Audiencia to feel injured, as the places
are very distinct from each other. Although the vexation ceased,
because of the suppression of the Audiencia, the injury done me by
the president, in writing to your Majesty, has not yet come to an
end. I ought not to fail to reply to what is so unjustly imputed to me.

He who informed your Majesty of the matter contained in the fifth
decree, namely, that when appeal is made to the royal Audiencia in
cases of fuerca, [41] I do not allow the notaries to give an account
thereof; and that I seize the writs and records of proceedings, so that
they cannot be issued, the Audiencia having requested me in vain to do
otherwise--whoever, I say, gave this account to your Majesty did me
greater injury than any of the others. For not only is this not so,
but I even urge the notary to give a report; and I am so far from
[what has been said] to the contrary, that I assure your Majesty
that I much regretted the suppression of the Audiencia. For I was
very glad that, whenever I denied anything on appeal, the Audiencia
examined my reasons therefor; and, whatever was determined there,
my conscience was freed and at rest. Moreover, I always accepted,
without making any objection, the decisions of the Audiencia; for
I would consider it a grievous offense to deny your Majesty's right
to make the final decision in cases of fuerca, and would not presume
to contradict it in any manner whatsoever. If he who made that report
based it on two cases which came up--one when they erased my name from
the prayer at the mass of the Audiencia, and substituted their own
names; the other when, in an investigation, they claimed the right to
examine the proceedings which had been conducted in secret--in these
two cases I confess that I refused to give up the records. I did so in
one instance because there were therein very secret matters touching
the office of the Inquisition, of which I was then in charge. When
they commanded that report of this case be given, I said that it
would be furnished in so far as concerned the chaplain of the said
Audiencia. This was what they had asked, and claimed the right to
try this case