Juan Soto de Vega, whom justice was prosecuting for having stolen a large sum of money from the ship which was coming from Mejico to Filipinas, had taken refuge in the asylum [sagrado] of the cathedral of Manila.  Desirous of escaping from the prosecution of the secular tribunal, he tried to get to Eastern or Portuguese Yndia in the month of December.  He begged permission from the provisor and vicar-general, Don Pedro Monrroy, that he might be taken from the cathedral and kept in the ecclesiastical prison; and they actually kept him there, but with guards and in confinement, until the Portuguese boats left for Yndia.  Then they returned him to the cathedral, where he remained for the space of eight months, until an auditor took him violently from the church on the fifth of September, 1623, and took him to the public prison.  There he, in company with another auditor, tortured Juan de la Vega until they broke his arm, which caused a great public scandal.

The provisor began to take steps in defense of the ecclesiastical immunity.  He demanded the criminal, and publicly declared the auditors to be excommunicated, threatening to place them under interdict, unless they would return the prisoner to the church.  After the time-limit had expired, the interdict was imposed.  The auditors, on the other hand, despatched a letter and a second letter to the provisor charging him to lift the censures and interdict, under penalty of banishment and a fine of 2,000 ducados, unless he did that in the time-limit that they assigned him.  As he did not fulfil the command, they despatched the court constable, with soldiers, to look for the provisor in order to arrest him.  They registered all the house of the archbishop, and the house of the provisor himself, sequestered his goods, broke off the locks of the cupboards and writing-desks, and ransacked his papers, but did not find him, for he had hidden in the convent of the Augustinians.

The archbishop (against whom the proceedings were directed), seconded by the public opinion, which was contrary to the auditors, summoned Doctor Don Juan de Renteria, bishop of Nueva Segovia (who was then in Manila), and various religious, prebendaries, and lawyers, and assembled or formed a council to discuss what ought to be done in such a case.  The opinion of all was that the auditors were legitimately excommunicated, and the interdict rightly imposed; and that the ecclesiastical immunity ought to be sustained, and satisfaction demanded for the scandal by returning the fugitive to the church.

While that meeting was being held, the auditors despatched a royal mandate, which they said was given by Don Felipe, to the archbishop, ordering him not to retain Don Pedro de Monrroy as provisor, as he was exiled from the kingdoms, to absolve the excommunicated, and lift the interdict—­under penalty, if he did not do so, of banishment and a fine of 2,000 ducados.  The archbishop replied, demanding a testimony of the