[Then follow the depositions of Juan Arze de Sadornel, Andres Cauchela, the captain Juan Pacheco Maldonado, Pedro Carballo, the ensign Christobal de Axcueta, Don Juan de Bivero (treasurer of the Manila cathedral, and a priest), and Don Juan de Armendares (canon of the cathedral, and a priest).  They are couched in almost the same words as the foregoing.  The testimony of all shows the high cost of living in the islands, and ascribes the cause to the great number of Spaniards, the deaths by disease and war of many natives, and the coming of great numbers of Chinese for purposes of trade, they as well as the Spaniards being non-producers.  Of the natives many have engaged in trade and but few till the soil, thus increasing the dearth of provisions and forcing prices still higher.  The two priests do not take the oath in the same form as the laymen, but by “placing the hand upon the breast, and swearing by their priestly word.”  After all of these depositions, each of them attested in due form by the notary, the document continues:]

All the above, according to what passed before me, the said clerk of the court, I have given and delivered, signed with my name and signet [i.e., flourish] to the honorable president and auditors, written on ten sheets together with this present, accompanied with my signet.  In the city of Manila, in the Filipinas islands, on June thirtieth, in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty-four—­the witnesses being Rodrigo de Leon and Alvaro Mendez de Herrera.

Luis Velez Cherino.

The words are crossed out where is read poner, a, y, queste de; and corrected where is read hacienda, tostones, and come; and de has been inserted between the lines.  I, Luis Velez Cherino, court clerk of the royal Audiencia established in this city of Manila, have written this and caused it to be written; and here I affix my signet to such document, in witness of the truth.

Luis Velez Cherino.

Letter from Melchior Davalos to Felipe II

Royal Catholic Majesty: 

It was through divine inspiration, we may believe, that your Majesty appointed a president and auditors for this extremity or beginning of the world; for at the very time when Governor Don Gonzalo Ronquillo had just died or was about to die, in this city of Manila, the Council, more than four thousand leagues from here, resolved upon and decreed the foundation of the royal Audiencia in Manila, and we came hither—­as president and governor, Doctor Santiago de Vera; I, who was living quite neglected in Mexico, as first auditor; the licentiate Rojas as second auditor, and the licentiate Ayala as fiscal.  It is said that another auditor, the licentiate Bravo, remained in Castilla; all of us excepting him came here.  We set sail from the port of Acapulco on the ninth of March, according to the new computation of time which your Majesty, by order of the supreme pontiff,