The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 20 of 55: 1621-1624; 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 20 of 55: 1621-1624; 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
other investigation or information from me, or from others, I think
that you will see very clearly the reasons and objects that, as I
have said, have moved the governor to commit so atrocious an act as
he did in my imprisonment. However, it is also well known that the
following reasons have influenced him.
First, the governor, as above stated, was angered because, when I was
judge of the probate court, it should happen that I should collect
that property of Licentiate Andres de Alcazar, because of the latter's
death. Licentiate Legaspi was angered for the same reason. For both of
them, as is very well known in this community, would have liked that
to have happened when Licentiate Legaspi should be judge, and they
know why. I dare only judge what is said, and what I see and hear
outside, although there is so much grumbling at their objects, and
at the wealth that they have retained for this, that it scandalizes
me. However, I do not dare to believe it, in order to say whether
it be true that the reputation and envy of each one of those two
men that exists in this community, obliges everyone to form his own
opinion of it. Desiring that the care of the fund and the office pass
to better hands than mine, they thought that it would be done well if
I were arrested. Accordingly, the governor took this as his guide for
action, so that, while I was a prisoner, the care of the fund might
be transferred to Licentiate Legaspi. The governor alone appointed
the latter as probate judge, although I still had one year to serve,
and at the fulfilment of that time it pertained in turn to Don Antonio
Rodriguez; and then all the Audiencia exercises it and not he solely,
by virtue of express orders and commands of your Majesty. Thereupon,
the governor, in one way or another, together with Licentiate Legaspi,
although no layman spoke to me in prison, permitted me to be notified
to deliver the keys and the property. But I, fearing, as a man, what
others feared, said that I had to give an account of that property,
and that since I was a prisoner, I could not do so; and that he should
free me, so that I could attend to my office and fulfil the commissions
with which your Majesty had charged me--namely, the residencias of
Don Juan de Silva and Don Juan de Alvarado--since I had committed no
crime for which I should be arrested; and adduced other reasons why
I could not deliver the key because of the risk that that property
would be running should the key pass through other hands. As he thought
that that was insufficient to obtain his will, they immediately added
another reason according to which it was advisable to borrow from that
fund thirty thousand pesos for your Majesty's service, under pretext
that it was to be used for the despatch of the fleet then preparing
to sail. [But this was done] in violation of a decree of your Majesty
ordering that the president and governor shall take no money, in small
or large quantity, from the fund of the probate court, for any cause
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