be sought.  Messa urges the king to send a new governor, and gives his advice as to the character of him who should be sent.  He intimates that Fajardo has illegally obtained wealth to the value of perhaps almost a million pesos, and that even this sum will not repay the claims held against him.  Messa gives account of certain residencias entrusted to him, and claims that all his efforts to do this work have been blocked by the governor, especially in the case of Juan de Silva.  He complains that the authority of the governor and that of the Audiencia conflict, especially in time of war; and that the former has too wide a jurisdiction in that he may try cases brought against the auditors.  Messa recommends that aid for the Philippine colony be sent in the form of men and money, and that the necessary ships and artillery be constructed in the islands.  He complains that the Chinese traders are illegally compelled to pay assessments, from which the fiscal, who is nominally their protector, receives additional pay.  Messa asks for honors and promotion for himself, by way of atonement for the ill-treatment that he has received from the governor; and closes with the request that Fajardo’s property in Mexico be sequestered.

With this letter is another by the same writer, dated July 30, 1622—­a postscript to a duplicate of the preceding letter.  He relates how Fajardo has summoned him to resume his duties as auditor; but he has no confidence in the governor’s sincerity.  He accuses the latter of various illegal and crafty acts, among them sending contraband gold and jewels to Mexico.  Messa recounts the proceedings in the Santa Potenciana scandal, blaming the governor’s course therein.  At the end is a letter from the Audiencia advising the king to refuse an increase of salary to the archbishop of Manila, with a note by Fajardo recommending such increase.

The archbishop of Manila, Miguel Garcia Serrano, writes (1621) a report for the first year of his term of office—­which, however, he does not send until 1622.  He has been occupied in official visitations, mainly in the city of Manila.  Among the clergy therein he finds no offenses, save that a few have gambled in public; these are promptly disciplined.  The cathedral is the only Spanish parochial church; it cares for two thousand four hundred souls.  Another curate is in charge of the Indians and slaves of Manila, who number one thousand six hundred and forty and one thousand nine hundred and seventy respectively; but many of these confess at the convents of the various orders.  The Indians should have a suitable church of their own, and Serrano recommends that the king provide one for them.  At the port of Cavite is a parochial church, which ministers to over three thousand souls.  The Indians in the archdiocese of Manila are mainly in charge of the religious orders, as follows:  Of the Augustinians, ninety thousand souls; Franciscans, forty-eight thousand four hundred; Dominicans, twenty-eight thousand; Jesuits, ten thousand