I found Admiral Don Cristoval de Lugo i Montalbo here, a man of very well-known character, and who has rendered excellent service in Milan, and in the wars of Saboya and Piamonte [i.e., Savoy and Piedmont].  I have busied him in the post of chief commandant of Pintados, and as my lieutenant in military matters of that province.  He deserves honor and reward from your Majesty.

Your Majesty conceded for another lifetime to my wife, Dona Maria de Ssalacar (whose parents and grandparents served your Majesty well in these regions), the encomiendas that her mother possessed.  Inasmuch as I am so liable to die at any occasion in your Majesty’s service that may arise, which desired end I shall endeavor to attain; and since she cannot remain decently as a widow in this country:  I petition your Majesty, in consideration of all my services and those of her father and grandfather, to reward her, and to concede to her, for the time while she holds it, absence from the said encomiendas, that she may enjoy them wherever she pleases to dwell.  For that will not result in any harm to a third party, nor can the personal presence of a woman be of any service to your Majesty.  This reward can not serve as a precedent, while there are many other precedents in other parts of the Indias to private persons (and they not of my position) [that render it possible].

The almiranta arrived July 29, and its being able to get here seems miraculous, as this is the season when there are no vendavals.  I am giving employment to all the paid substitutes possible, in order to stop to some extent the so great waste of the royal treasury, which such men use up without any profit.

I found the deanship of this holy church vacant because of the death of Don Francisco Gomez de Arrellano.  On the twenty-eighth of the past month the archdeanship fell vacant because of the death of Ssantiago de Castro.  I have made presentations in the following dignities in your Majesty’s name, for your royal patronage, ad interim, and I trust that your Majesty will confirm them:  dean, precentor, schoolmaster, archdean, one canon for the precentorship, one cura for the schoolmaster, canon, one racionero, in the ration of Lorenzo Rramirez—­all persons of proved virtue and deserving of these rewards.  May God preserve your Majesty.  Manila, August 4, 1625.

Fernando de Silva

DOCUMENTS OF 1626

Letter from the archbishop to Felipe IV.  Miguel Garcia Serrano; July 25.  Letter to Felipe IV.  Fernando de Silva; July 30.  Letter from the sisters of St. Clare to Felipe IV.  Jeronima de la Asunsion, and others; July 31.  Petition for aid to the seminary of San Juan Letran.  Juan Geronimo de Guerrero; August 1.  Royal decrees.  Felipe IV; June-October.  Military affairs of the islands. [Unsigned]; 1626.

Sources:  Most of these documents are obtained from MSS. in the Archivo general de Indias, Sevilla.  The last two of the “Royal decrees” are from MSS. in the Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid; and the sixth document is from a rare pamphlet in the British Museum, London.