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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 19 of 55: 1620-1621; Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century.

History

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 19 of 55: 1620-1621; Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century.

Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources

The royal officials do no more than he wishes, and, besides, they
have the example of former ones, who for not acting thus were removed,
and held prisoners for three years until your Majesty learned of it,
and ordered their offices to be returned to them, and perchance the
many hardships and afflictions which the governor inflicted upon
them, and caused them to suffer, cost two of them their lives, and
lost for your Majesty, in the factor, one of the best servants whom
you had in the Filipinas. Accordingly, what I promised to prove is
well established; for the complaints were so long in arriving, and
the redress in returning, that he who awaited them was already dead.

In the third place, it is essential that he should not be excessively
grasping; and that your Majesty should give him such expectations,
if he conducts himself well, that his profit will rest more on them
than in what the government is worth to him. He should be of mature
age and great experience in handling the affairs of the commonwealth,
such as some knights possess who hold offices of corregidor on the
coasts of Espana, and who govern in peace and war, as they never lack
exercise for these abilities on the coasts. For if they were only
required to be expert in war, the country would be in ruins before
they became capable of governing it--as, for our sins, we have seen
in past years. They should not come burdened with debts, which are
demoralizing in a thousand ways. Notwithstanding that your Majesty
has issued decrees which prohibit them from giving offices of profit
to members of their households, rather than to the worthy persons of
the kingdom, these decrees are the least complied with; nor is there
any one who dares to interfere in this. If any one should make bold
to put the bell on the cat, as the adage says, who would make him
comply with it? By no means the royal Audiencia. At one time when I
was petitioning for the execution of a royal decree of your Majesty
there, an auditor, a friend of mine, said: "You should not do this;
for, besides not accomplishing anything by it, you will get yourself
into difficulty with him."

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 19 of 55: 1620-1621; Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century.

Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources

The royal officials do no more than he wishes, and, besides, they
have the example of former ones, who for not acting thus were removed,
and held prisoners for three years until your Majesty learned of it,
and ordered their offices to be returned to them, and perchance the
many hardships and afflictions which the governor inflicted upon
them, and caused them to suffer, cost two of them their lives, and
lost for your Majesty, in the factor, one of the best servants whom
you had in the Filipinas. Accordingly, what I promised to prove is
well established; for the complaints were so long in arriving, and
the redress in returning, that he who awaited them was already dead.

In the third place, it is essential that he should not be excessively
grasping; and that your Majesty should give him such expectations,
if he conducts himself well, that his profit will rest more on them
than in what the government is worth to him. He should be of mature
age and great experience in handling the affairs of the commonwealth,
such as some knights possess who hold offices of corregidor on the
coasts of Espana, and who govern in peace and war, as they never lack
exercise for these abilities on the coasts. For if they were only
required to be expert in war, the country would be in ruins before
they became capable of governing it--as, for our sins, we have seen
in past years. They should not come burdened with debts, which are
demoralizing in a thousand ways. Notwithstanding that your Majesty
has issued decrees which prohibit them from giving offices of profit
to members of their households, rather than to the worthy persons of
the kingdom, these decrees are the least complied with; nor is there
any one who dares to interfere in this. If any one should make bold
to put the bell on the cat, as the adage says, who would make him
comply with it? By no means the royal Audiencia. At one time when I
was petitioning for the execution of a royal decree of your Majesty
there, an auditor, a friend of mine, said: "You should not do this;
for, besides not accomplishing anything by it, you will get yourself
into difficulty with him."

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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