The commanders of the galleys which your Majesty has in Hespana, Italia, Yndias, and other regions appoint for the said galleys a chief chaplain and chaplains.  After these are approved and have obtained a license from the ordinary to carry on their ministries, the archbishops and their vicars and the bishops do not trouble themselves about the chaplains.  This is a settled and recognized custom, so that no one pays any attention to it except the archbishop of this city, because there is nothing with which he does not meddle.  He has handed in a document, maintaining that this is not a concern of your Majesty’s but belongs to him, and that he has the right to nominate and approve the chaplains to these positions if he desires, or to decline to approve them.  Accordingly, after I had nominated an approved religious, a preacher of the Order of St. Augustine, as chaplain of these galleys, the bishop directed him, under pain of excommunication, not to fulfil this ministry, declaring that I had no authority to make the nomination.  Certain other religious who had been chaplains of galleys in Spain, and General Don Diego de Mendoca, and others who had sailed in galleys there, and who were acquainted with the system followed in them, all gave testimony; but this was not sufficient to restrain him from carrying out his purpose.  I beg that your Majesty will be pleased to give command that since this matter does not concern him he shall not meddle with it, nor with the other things which are outside his jurisdiction. [Marginal note:  “Referred to the Council of War.”]

In other letters I have reported to your Majesty the great importance, for the security and defense of this country, of maintaining a supply of galleys, and I have also reported the number which I have supplied with arms.  Since they cannot be kept up without an allowance of money sufficient for them, I beg your Majesty to be pleased to command that there shall be set aside twenty thousand ducados from the treasury of Mexico, or else from the ten per cent duty levied at Acapulco upon the merchandise exported hence.  The purpose of this fund shall be to maintain four or five galleys, which are necessary here.  This is the same amount that is spent in Cartagena for a single galley, and your Majesty may trust me, as one who has looked carefully into the matter, that this is necessary; and that expenditures without this only waste funds and consume lives in gaining nothing. [Marginal note:  “Referred to the Council of War.”]

I shall examine some despatches which have been received here this year, which as yet I have not been able to do because of the necessity of concluding this despatch, and I shall answer them at the first opportunity.  May God keep the Catholic person of your Majesty, as Christendom has need.

From the port of Cavite, July 8, 1605.

Don Pedro de Acuna

[Endorsed:  “August 2, 1606.  Examination and decree within”]