justice, which is a thing that your Majesty ought not to permit to happen to your ministers.  Although all these reasons were sufficient to decide me not to allow this innovation without a special order from your Majesty, there is, in the present case of Don Fernando de Silba, another very special consideration, since he is leaving an encomienda in this country with an income of four thousand pesos per year.  That is the best bond that one can ask.  Consequently, seeing that no detriment was being incurred in not taking the bonds, I decided the matter by declaring that I was not judge in this sense.  I am sending the copies of the acts to that royal Council, so that your Majesty may be pleased, after their examination, to enact what may be considered most fitting, and with all distinctness, so that there may be no abuses here, and so that the governors who depart after the entrance of the other governors may not be harassed.  With Don Fernando I have maintained very harmonious relations during the three years while I kept him here.  On the occasion of this despatch, I have furnished him all the accommodations possible, assigning him forty toneladas of cargo to carry his goods, household, and servants.  He is a person who is worthy of what favor your Majesty may show him, and will render excellent service in any employment that he may hold. [In the margin:  “Refer it to the fiscal.”  “It was referred.  Answered on a separate paper.”]

[14.] Erection of the bridge; and how the hospital has been given the revenue produced by the ferry boat.

The bridge which I began in this city (as I have advised you during the last few years) is now in such a condition that we can cross by it.  It will be finished in a couple of months without having cost the citizens or your Majesty a single maravedi.  The Sangleys have built it from their common fund, with which they have been freed from the amount that the ferry-boat cost them.  The latter belonged to the hospital of the same Sangleys, which is in charge of the Dominican fathers; and it netted them at least two thousand pesos annually.  They maintained themselves with that sum; and accordingly, so that that hospital, so necessary for that nation, might not be left without support, it has seemed best, with the consent of the Audiencia, to assign to the hospital the same sum of two thousand pesos per year from the common fund of the same Sangleys, with their consent.  Thus will it be done, and the Sangleys do not pay any ferry rate, but support the hospital, in which they are treated, from their common fund.  Your Majesty is patron of it as ever, the fathers happy, and the poor well provided for. [In the margin:  “File this with what is enacted in the petition of the Dominican fathers.”  “This section was filed with a memorial given by Fray Mateo de Villa.”  “It is decreed in the memorial and what is to be answered, here on a separate paper.”]

15.  Sickness in Manila this year, and death of the archbishop