Consequently the Audiencia acquitted Juan de la Vega, whereat the whole city rejoiced, for all were persuaded that such accusations were lies.  However, as this matter is so serious, when the husbands learned of it upon their arrival, they refused to live with their wives or to enter an adultery suit, for the adultery could not be proved.  Consequently, even with such an effort by the Audiencia, those families are ruined; although it is quite true that, if the governor had executed the sentence, it is regarded as certain that they would have killed their wives.  This is the truth, Sire, and it could not be written in the Audiencia’s letter.  If other things have been written to your Majesty by the governor, they must be a part of his schemes to bleed himself safely, under pretext of your Majesty’s service, as all see that he is doing.

The residencia of Licentiate Don Juan de Saavedra for the period of his fiscalship, which your Majesty orders me to take, has come to my hands.  I am resolved to take it on the departure of the ships, for this residencia does not have the troubles of that of Don Juan de Silva and of Don Hieronimo de Silva, as these duplicates of the letters of the past year which I wrote your Majesty and which will be in these letters that I am writing [will relate].  In those residencias I shall make, as I say in the duplicates, efforts to take them, proceeding throughout as in duty bound, looking to the greater service of God and that of your Majesty.  Thefts committed by the soldiers because they are not paid, and many other calamities of the country, I shall not relate because of what I have promised, and as that would be impossible.  And also because that aids in putting an end to sorrow and just resentment, will your Majesty give what orders you please in everything.

I petition your Majesty for God’s sake to please give me satisfaction for the insults and injuries that I have received from the governor for your Majesty’s service, and also to withdraw me from this country, honoring me and showing me favor, for I have no strength to serve your Majesty here.  May God preserve the Catholic person of your Majesty.  Manila, July 30, 1622.

Licentiate Don Alvaro Messa y Lugo

Sire: 

The archbishop of these islands presented a petition in this royal Audiencia, in which he requested that depositions be accepted for him, by order and officially, in which he claims that your Majesty conceded to him an increase of his salary of three thousand Castilian ducados per year, in order that he may be able to support himself for the reasons that he alleges.  Having officially received the depositions, what seems to have resulted from it, in brief, is that if the archbishop would regulate himself in the ostentation and authority that he exercises in imitation of others, his predecessors, he could live on his salary of three thousand ducados.  Nevertheless they [i.e., those making depositions] consider the said ostentation and authority as suitable to what is due the archiepiscopal dignity; and that, in order to sustain that dignity that he exercises and enjoys, an increase of his salary will be necessary, because the prices of articles for the sustenance of human life have increased, as appears by the said deposition, which, if your Majesty please, you will order to be examined.