The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 5 of 55 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 289 pages of information about The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 5 of 55.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 5 of 55 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 289 pages of information about The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 5 of 55.

60. Item:  Our president with two auditors at the beginning of each year shall audit the reports of the officials in charge of our royal treasury for the previous year; and the said officials shall finish them within the months of January and February.  When they are completed they shall send a transcript thereof to our Council of the Yndias.  We also command that at the end of the said two months, if the said accounts are not completed, the officials of our royal treasury shall receive no salary until they finish them; and each of the auditors who shall thus be ready to receive the said accounts shall have as a fee twenty-five thousand maravedis.

61. Item:  The judicial settlement [remate] made with regard to auctions by our royal treasury must not be made without the consent of the majority of those appointed therefor, even when the auditor who shall be present desires it.  Further, at such sales and settlements shall be present our fiscal with said officials, who shall sell nothing in his absence.

62. Item:  We command that at the time when the auditing of the accounts of our royal exchequer by our president and auditors shall begin, in conformity with the decree given thereon, they shall go first of all to our royal treasury and weigh and count the gold and silver and the other things therein.  They shall make a record thereof, and immediately begin the accounts; and when they are completed the balance shall be collected within the time required by the said decree, and shall be placed in the chest of the three keys, orders being given that the balance of the preceding year shall not be made up by the collections received during the auditing of the accounts.

63. Item:  When the officials of our royal exchequer shall have need of absenting themselves from the city where they reside, they shall not have authority to do so without license from our president, who shall give it for a short time, to a destination within those regions, and no more.  There shall be designated, in the place of the official on leave, a person suitable therefor in the judgment of the said president.  And if the said official absents himself in any other manner he shall lose his position.

64.  Further:  At the time of the making up of the accounts of the tithes, for distribution according to the ecclesiastical appointments, there shall be present thereat an auditor.

65. Item:  We command that no salary be paid from our royal exchequer, or from fines, to the judges in cases of residencia, or to criminal judges [pesquisidores] commissioned by our Audiencia.

66. Item:  We desire that there shall be a record of all the suits and transactions of our royal exchequer; and that every Thursday in each week (and if that shall be a holiday, on the day before), after dinner, the senior auditor with our fiscal and the officials of our exchequer, and one of the clerks thereof, shall discuss article by article the said suits and transactions by means of the said record, considering the state in which they are and how the decisions reached at previous meetings have been carried out.

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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 5 of 55 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.