I humbly beg your Majesty that, with this understanding, your Majesty may be pleased to command that opportunity be not given for distortion of facts in such a way, by persons so jealous and so suspicious, who are moved alone by anger and passion to avenge themselves and procure satisfaction from the ministers who, for the service of your Majesty, have administered (as they still do) justice in your behalf; and that you will command that the illegality which appears to have been committed in this be punished, as is most fitting for the service of your Majesty.  God protect the Catholic person of your Majesty.  Manila, July 8, 1602.

Doctor Antonio de Morga

Sire: 

I, the licentiate Geronimo de Salazar y Salcedo, your fiscal in the royal Chancilleria of the Philipinas Islands, say that on the sixteenth of January of the year one thousand six hundred your Majesty was pleased to command that a royal commission be given to Don Pedro de Acuna, governor and captain-general of these islands, empowering him, when he should reach them, to cause the royal officials to give him a report of what they have collected from Don Francisco Tello, his predecessor, toward the sixteen millions [of maravedis?] which were still due from the balance which was incurred by him at the time when he was treasurer of the Sevilla House of Trade; and also to cause that whatever remained to be paid should be collected from the said Don Francisco Tello and from his property.

In the course of the execution of this commission by the said Don Pedro de Acuna, the royal officials certified that the said Don Francisco Tello had paid them twenty-seven thousand two hundred pesos of common gold, which should be twenty-eight thousand one hundred and eighty-four pesos, according to your command by a royal decree dated in San Lorenco, on the thirteenth of September in the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-five.  The said officials decided that the eight thousand pesos which were lost in the year one thousand six hundred in the ship “Santa Margarita” should be for your Majesty’s account—­because, since the debt was contracted in the Sevilla House of Trade, the payment should be there; and the said Don Francisco Tello must run the risk as far as that.  They also decided that what was ordered in the aforesaid royal decree of the thirteenth of September, ninety-five, was that each year three thousand ducados should be deducted from the salary of Don Francisco Tello, which were to be sent each year; and, as he failed to pay in the years ninety-six, ninety-seven, and ninety-eight, for the rest of the time it came about that eight thousand pesos were sent each year.  It was thus that the aforesaid eight thousand pesos were lost which were going in the said ship “Santa Margarita;” whereas, if the aforesaid royal decree had been followed and three thousand ducados sent, no more than that sum would have been lost.