Captain Esteban Rodriguez de Figueroa, son-in-law of the licentiate Melchior Davalos, your auditor, killed his wife and nephew, the own son of his brother, saying that they had committed adultery. This he proved by some Indian women of his house, although he did not find them in the act. I conducted the trial, and, after review thereof, condemned him to six years of exile, and a fine of five thousand pesos for your royal court, the expenses of justice, and other things. This year a Japanese ship came to this port with many supplies and arms. There must have been more than five hundred arquebuses and as many of their kind of swords, and some battle-axes. As the conspiracy of the Indians had taken place when the said ship arrived, it was believed that it came for the execution of that plot. On entering the port, this ship was boarded, and all its cargo was sequestered and the crew imprisoned. It was learned that they were going to sell the weapons in Cian, and they were released from custody, on condition that they would sell the goods here. This they did, and this country has consequently been supplied with weapons. As your royal treasury is usually in need and lack of money, it happened at the beginning of February of this year that, on petition of the prebendaries and curas of the cathedral, the bishop of these islands commanded the royal officials, under pain of excommunication, to pay them the stipends assigned them from your royal treasury--amounting to one thousand five hundred pesos annually, for four prebendaries. According to my information your said officials owed them nothing whatever, in accordance with the agreement made with them in the month of July of the year eighty-seven--namely, that from that day they were to be paid their entire current salary; and of that due them they were to be paid little by little, as your royal treasury was so over-burdened. At this notification they replied to the bishop that he could not be judge of that case, as it was a secular one and they were laymen. Of necessity, they appealed to the Audiencia; and the bishop ordered that they be declared excommunicated. This was publicly done, and their names written on the public list, on a Saturday evening. After the Audiencia saw what difficulties would follow on the excommunication of your royal officials, and after it had examined the proceedings in the report made to the judge, it passed an ordinance, asking and requiring the bishop to absolve and reinstate the officials until the documents could be examined in the council-room. To this he gave a certain reply, and after considering this, with the documents, another decree was made, in which it was declared to the bishop that he was not the judge of the cause, which the Audiencia ordered to be retained under its own jurisdiction. As I was not present at this decision it was ordered that I be notified, and that I should appear in the suit in defense of your royal jurisdiction.