taken the trouble to remind me of their need so that I might order them paid immediately, they enacted the act above mentioned—­copy of which, together with the reply of the royal officials, I herewith enclose.  Last year they themselves asked me not to pay them the April third until that for August was due, as they wished to receive them together.  That shows how little inconvenience follows their not having received it this year in the month of July.  Surely, all these actions are the offspring of their natures, [and show the] duplicity and deceit with which they are arming themselves in order to break the peace, perhaps because they have seen that the inspector who was expected did not come this or last year, at whose coming I was hoping to have rest.  But since he has not come, it will be necessary for me to do myself what I wished to have done by the hand of another—­namely, to give the auditors to understand the respect which they ought to have for their governor and president.  This said, I shall now go on to answer the points of the letter which I have heard from them themselves, and which they say are the ones which they wrote to your Majesty.  In passing, I shall answer to that Council the chief complaints, which, I suppose, are the ones that may oppose my method of governing.  It is no little consolation that all of them have to do with points or controversies of justice, and not defects which transgress my obligations; for it is those that could give me some pain.

That it is not advisable that the royal Audiencia carry the burden of visiting the prison of Tondo and that of the Parian of the Chinese.

3.  The first point is in respect to the royal Audiencia petitioning that it be ordered that they visit the prisons of the village of Tondo and of the Parian of the Sangleys.  This does not appear just; for although those prisons are near Manila, and inside the district of the five leguas to which the [jurisdiction of the] Audiencia extends (which is the argument on which they take their stand), still those places have their alcaldes-mayor, and are separate jurisdictions, and it belongs to those officials to make their visitation of prisons as the Audiencia do in theirs.  It is true that the alcaldes-in-ordinary and those of the court (who are the auditors themselves) arrest in Tondo and in the Parian by virtue of the five leguas; but they do not put the prisoners in the prisons of those courts, but in that of the court, or the prison of this city.  The example which they have cited to me—­namely, that the prisons of the suburbs of Mexico are visited on Saturdays by the auditors—­is not well taken in this case; for those prisons are in charge of the corregidor, and separate, because the city is large and needs those different prisons.  But the prison of Tacubaja, which is one-half legua or slightly more from the city, is not visited by the Audiencia, because it has its own alcalde-mayor.  And it is certain that because Sangleys are confined in these prisons of Tondo and the Parian, the royal Audiencia is claiming the right to visit them, for all their anxiety is to acquire very full authority over that people.  I have written your Majesty enough on this point.  It would be advisable for your service to have this royal Audiencia prohibited from trying any cause concerning the Sangleys.