The licentiate Geronimo de Salacar y Salcedo, fiscal of this royal Audiencia, died two or three months ago. No great loss will result hereby to the affairs to the royal treasury, since he paid little attention to them in his office. For the interim before your Majesty shall appoint a person to fulfil the duties of this position, the Audiencia has appointed the bachelor Rodrigo Diaz Guiral, a man of learning, integrity, and responsibility--such a man as might be desired for this office. My acquaintance with all these qualifications in him has constrained me to call your Majesty's attention to them, so that you might be pleased to favor him; for surely, in my opinion, it would not be possible to find another man more suitable for this office. He has property of his own, and claims and suits give him no anxiety. Accordingly, I have made special efforts to induce him to accept the position; for it is necessary to seek persons like him for such offices. Since he has had so much experience with the business of this office, I have no doubt that he will give a good account of himself. [_Marginal note_: "Referred to the Council."] The commanders of the galleys which your Majesty has in Hespana, Italia, Yndias, and other regions appoint for the said galleys a chief chaplain and chaplains. After these are approved and have obtained a license from the ordinary to carry on their ministries, the archbishops and their vicars and the bishops do not trouble themselves about the chaplains. This is a settled and recognized custom, so that no one pays any attention to it except the archbishop of this city, because there is nothing with which he does not meddle. He has handed in a document, maintaining that this is not a concern of your Majesty's but belongs to him, and that he has the right to nominate and approve the chaplains to these positions if he desires, or to decline to approve them. Accordingly, after I had nominated an approved religious, a preacher of the Order of St. Augustine, as chaplain of these galleys, the bishop directed him, under pain of excommunication, not to fulfil this ministry, declaring that I had no authority to make the nomination. Certain other religious who had been chaplains of galleys in Spain, and General Don Diego de Mendoca, and others who had sailed in galleys there, and who were acquainted with the system followed in them, all gave testimony; but this was not sufficient to restrain him from carrying out his purpose. I beg that your Majesty will be pleased to give command that since this matter does not concern him he shall not meddle with it, nor with the other things which are outside his jurisdiction. [_Marginal note_: "Referred to the Council of War."]