be adopted in this matter, you shall assemble the persons of that city most experienced in shipbuilding and in navigation, and in accordance with their opinion you shall proceed in building the ships.  You shall endeavor to consider in their construction what regards both strength and capacity, and the other matters above mentioned.  You shall advise me of what resolution you shall adopt.  Given in Madrid, December fourteen, one thousand six hundred and thirty.

I the King

Countersigned by Don Fernando Ruiz de Contreras, and signed by the members of the Council.

[Endorsed:  “To the governor of Philipinas, ordering him to assemble the persons of that city most experienced in shipbuilding and navigation, and in accordance with their opinion to regulate the building of ships.”]

Letter to the Manila Audiencia

The King.  To the auditors of my royal Audiencia of the city of Manila in the Filipinas Islands.  Your letter of the first of [month omitted] 628 has been received and considered in my royal Council of the Indias, and I hereby give you answer to it.

In regard to what you say touching the fact that the officials of my royal treasury of those islands do not pay you your salaries promptly when due, saying that the governor has ordered them not to pay it without his decree, I am having the said governor ordered to endeavor not to delay the payment of your salaries; but that, on the contrary, you be preferred to all others in the payment of them.

You say that, in accordance with what was ordained by laws of the kingdom and ordinances of the Audiencia there, appeals have been admitted in it, from the decisions of the alcaldes-in-ordinary, [and] edicts of the governor; [but] that he has imposed a standard and measure, in matters of the political government, with certain penalties, on the Sangleys regarding the manner in which they have to make timber, tiling, and other like articles; and that the governor has prevented these causes from being appealed to that Audiencia, declaring his purpose to give me an account of it.  As he has done this, and has asked for a declaration of what he ought to do, I have ordered him to observe, in the method of reporting these contentions to me, and in the form on which they must be grounded, the order that is given by various decrees; and in the meanwhile he shall observe the custom in similar cases.  And if there are no similar cases, then no innovation shall be introduced in the trial of the said appeals.

The said governor also writes me in regard to what you say about his prohibiting disputes from going to that Audiencia, or to any of the auditors, as alcaldes of court, as he believes that the parties can go to place the disputes before the ordinary judges; so that, if there should be any act of injustice, the case may go on appeal to that Audiencia.  In that regard, he has been answered to observe the existing laws on that matter.