Your Majesty’s royal treasury owes to that of the goods of deceased persons more than forty thousand pesos, as appears from the memorandum and certification which I enclose herewith.  For since the relief which is sent from Nueva Espana is so meager, and the expenses here are so great, the governors my predecessors were obliged to take, by way of loan, all that sum on different occasions.  For the same reason I have not been able during my term, to repay it, nor do I hope to be able to do so, unless your Majesty order that sum to be sent from or paid in Nueva Espana on a separate account, in consideration of the fact that it is property of parties who are suffering, and, most of all, the goods of deceased persons.  I give this information to your Majesty, as to the master and sovereign of it, and for the relief of my conscience.

Fourth point of the letter

The office of the notary of government and war which became vacant by the death of Captain Pedro Alvarez, was put at auction and adjudged to the heaviest bidder, who was Pedro de Heredia, governor of Terrenate.  He bought it and placed it under charge of one of his sons.  It was knocked down for the value of fifty-four thousand pesos—­ten thousand to be paid on the spot, in reals, another ten thousand from his pay, and the thirty-four thousand remaining in the pay-warrants of various persons.  It seems to have been a sale of importance for the services of your Majesty.  And in order to avoid the suits which the secretaries of government have had with the governors my predecessors, as to whether that office should include the secretaryship of the permits to the Sangleys and the inspection of the Chinese ships (which are special commissions of the governor), and in order to avoid suits with my successors, I ordered that in the sale of that office it be made a condition that no more than the office of government secretary be sold; and that this was understood to be only what the governor should sign in writing; for in the commissions that the latter should give for those permits the secretary of the government was not to act as secretary. [In the margin:  “As the fiscal says.”]

The above is what occurs to me in regard to the increase and efficient administration of your royal treasury.  I shall now declare my opinion regarding two differences of justice or jurisdiction that have arisen with the royal officials.

Fifth point of this letter

They formerly proposed the clerks whom they employed in their offices, so that the governor should appoint them at the pay that was assigned.  In consequence of that power that they possessed, the accountant tried to take it upon himself to dismiss a clerk without any agreement with his associates, or the consent of the government.  In fact, he abolished the position.  I was informed that it was not for incompetency, or for any failure of which the clerk had been guilty in his office, but only for the accountant’s