That care and system signifies much in such employment, and even more when it is lacking, since a deficiency therein is more grievous.  Inasmuch as the accountant, Francisco Lopez Tamayo, left the department of accounts because of his advanced age and his ill-health, I appointed Pedro de Lensarra as accountant in his stead.  He came in the caravels with Ruy Gonzalez de Sequeyra.  I appointed him here for this purpose for I thought him a man just and intelligent in the matter, according to what I have hitherto been able to learn; and I made more of his good qualities than of the jealousy exhibited toward him by some, who call him a criminal and blasphemer—­but I am not surprised that it is rather unusual here to praise any person very highly.  What I can say of him is that the way in which he fills his office has not as yet displeased me.  On account of his report to me and that of the royal officials, in response to an order of mine issued for the correction of certain abuses, which I shall mention below, I instituted a reform in them as follows.

During the term of my predecessor a meeting was held by the president, auditors, and royal officials then in office (some of whom still hold their offices).  In that meeting reasons were given, with precedents and instances, that were deemed sufficient for them to resolve to distribute among themselves and other officials of the Audiencia, and the archbishop of this church, three thousand five hundred fanegas of rice, at the price at which the grain is furnished as tributes to your Majesty.  Since I saw that there was no royal order for it from you, and that no approbation of the resolution had come in so long an interval; and considering that that quantity, and much more which is added to it, is bought on the account of the royal treasury for the ordinary expenses and rations furnished by the royal treasury, which makes an assessment among the Indians in order to get it, and that your Majesty pays for what we take, at the rate of four reals, and at times four pesos—­but more often without paying the poor Indians, because [the treasury] has not the wherewithal; [and considering that] for that reason of not giving those Indians the money and of the loss suffered by them—­who, in order to comply with the assessment, have to buy at much dearer rates—­not only resulted the harm in the loss of the money, but sometimes loss of liberty to some, as they have become slaves because of it:  therefore, in order to reform so great an evil, I have enacted that this rice should not continue to be given to us, and that what has been received be restored, unless your Majesty shall order otherwise. [84] I have enacted the same in regard to four hundred pesos that were ordered to be given to the government secretary every year, by a similar meeting of the royal treasury, and excusing him from securing your Majesty’s confirmation.  Since his office is such that he bought it for seventeen thousand pesos at a time when it had no more perquisites